This Love Will Carry
by Cairistona
Summary: Prowl has nudged logic aside just enough to love a sweet Praxian femme. Yet things aren't as simple as that, and Decepticons are bound to complicate things, and he's still recovering from the damages Megatron inflicted him. Through hardship and challenge, however, he can rely of the love and support of his friends and the femme so dear to him.
1. Prologue: Prowl and Auri

_Welcome! This is a sequel, but you don't need to have read the previous stories to know what's going on. I'll make sure to introduce everyone well._

* * *

 **Prologue**

Prowl loves mornings. It's how he is and has been since he was a sparkling. When he was tiny, he was up before dawn, making his creators smile at his chipper antics. After they were killed and Ironhide adopted him, Prowl was still up before dawn, scribbling pictures and now and then eating candy while the big black mech slept in unaware that the small being in his care was heading down the fast lane for a tummy ache. As a youngling, he still got up early, much to the dismay of Jazz, also adopted by Ironhide; Jazz liked staying up late and getting up late.

Through University, Prowl got up to train before dawn, driving on the precision obstacle course and practicing his martial arts before waking Jazz in time for the silver mech to get some breakfast before class. Once they befriended the twins Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, in an initially rocky manner, Prowl had Sides to train with in the mornings while Sunny and Jazz stayed up late at night.

Once the war set in, Prowl continued his early morning ways. As a young Autobot officer, he often had to wait for his superiors, so his mornings were spent with his sparkmate, his childhood sweetheart named Zephyr, who had also enlisted in the Autobot cause. Once she was killed, Prowl -left vulnerable with grief- was persuaded to join the Decepticon side, where he had to wait for no one in the mornings. By now a sharp tactician, he savored the small lull in the inter-fighting of the Cons in the early morning, making the most of the quiet to craft battle plans against the Autobots who'd failed him and -he believed- who'd caused by neglect Zephyr's death.

In time, Megatron sensed a threat in Prowl and decided that the early riser should rise no more. He betrayed Prowl, using his battle plan intended to take Iacon instead against Prowl's beloved home, the beautiful city of Praxus, while Prowl was on leave. Prowl was supposed to get killed, but he saw his own work set in action and fled, ending up a prisoner of the Autobots.

Reeling from what had happened, Prowl recommitted himself to the Autobots, and slowly -painfully slowly- he redeemed himself. His early rising benefitted him in this situation as well, enabling him to get a head start on his assigned work each day. The thing was, however, he began to work late as well. The war and especially his time under Megatron had broken his spark, and he didn't want any spare time to think about anything other than ending the war. He didn't want to care for anyone or anything personally, and he shut down his emotions with logic.

When he rose in the Autobot ranks, he accepted it as logical, given how hard he had worked. When bots congratulated him in his promotions, he thanked them as a manner of civility rather than shared joy. Bots came to know him as a mech they could trust completely, not only the do the right thing but also to show little mercy to any offender of law, rule, or protocol. They all trusted him, but no one really liked him. He wasn't mean, but he wasn't overly kind. He was simply just. And he never truly smiled. Almost never. Jazz, now and then, could elicit a hint of a smile. Jazz was the only one Prowl didn't shut out completely.

But after a time, Optimus took a small team of bots to a remote planet called earth, Jazz along them, and Jazz got killed.

No one told Prowl. They got the news, but they hid it from Prowl. No one dared to tell him.

When Prowl came to earth a few years later, Optimus told him softly with great sorrow.

"Understood," Prowl said quietly. Then he took out his data and inquired about what duties he would be assigned.

He didn't show anger or rage or sadness or any emotion, but his justice was cold, logical, unyielding, as if he could bring Jazz back by making everyone adhere strictly to every rule. Just the sight of him made certain bots flinch. Even Optimus flinched sometimes. And the human allies definitely flinched. No one dared cross him.

Over the years, other bots came to earth, all of them fighters in the war, many of them already familiar with Prowl and his logic, but they found this even harder, more steely iteration of Prowl difficult to bear.

Then a bot entirely unfamiliar with Prowl came to earth, a young femme of Praxian heritage. Aurion Blaze, she was called. Auri, for short. The war had taken her home and her security, but she'd never been in battle, never trained to fight, never lived on a military base. Having come to earth, though, she wanted to be a part of the cause, do something useful. She wasn't even in her fully adult frame, but she wanted to help.

Perhaps it was her shared nationality with Prowl that made her want to work with him. It couldn't be his cold personality and his demanding standards, his way of boring a hole through other bots with his optics, his ready reprimands.

No one would have taken money to be Prowl's assistant.

Prowl didn't even want an assistant.

But Auri was earnest and persistent, and even if she didn't know a whole lot, she had a good sense of timing: she asked for a job when Prowl was most overrun with work.

He couldn't exactly say no.

He agreed tentatively.

The thing was, Ironhide had become Auri's guardian, and Ironhide wasn't about to let Prowl be hard on her the way he was with everybody else. Of course he couldn't force Prowl to baby the young femme, but he set up some rules of his own and warned Prowl sternly, especially against making her cry. Prowl knew Ironhide wasn't to be trifled with, so he made an effort to be somewhat kinder. It was a challenge for him at first, but he found that it wasn't so hard to be kind to a young bot who was very kind herself.

And, quickly, Prowl found that having a sweet little assistant wasn't at all bad. Humans really liked her, and she liked them back, and with all that liking going on, the humans were so much more inclined to be cooperative. Auri could get them the turn in their reports two days early, as opposed three days late. She actually liked phonecalls, a thing which Prowl hated. Bots liked her, too. Prowl swiftly learned to send her to retrieve a report rather than track someone down to retrieve it himself. She also proofread things before turning them in to him. He appreciated that. He liked making schedules, but he hated reworking them three days (or hours) later because someone found it inconvenient. Auri, somehow, thought it was like a fun puzzle.

She was an ideal workmate.

And mornings became better with her, with her smile, with her eagerness to work, with her respectful yet friendly, "Good morning, sir." One morning he actually smiled just a hint of a smile, and she beamed with delight.

She cared for and liked almost everyone, even Prowl, and this made him pause.

It felt odd to be liked. No one had liked him for a long time. No one had looked past his harsh exterior and put their finger gently on his good traits to draw them out. No one tried to see the best in him. No one kept trying to tease a smile from the hard line of his lips.

He developed a care for her, a brotherly guardian protectiveness. He didn't want anyone to hurt this little femme the way he been hurt. He remembered having compassion like hers, curiosity like hers, empathy... They were foreign to his spark now, beaten out by the Cons, by the war, even by the Bots to some degree.

He distrusted her friendship with the twins, but he was quietly glad that she spent a lot of time with Bumblebee. Bee was a good mech, not a troublemaker like the twins. Bee wouldn't hurt her. Bee could, potentially, even become her sparkmate, Prowl thought. Bee would make a good sparkmate for such a sweet and bright little femme.

Prowl was aware that she had a bit of a crush on him, Prowl, rather than Bee, but he didn't expect that to last as she got older.

He didn't expect her crush to develop gently into something more deeper, but it did. He never would have anticipated that she would melt a small crack in the hard exterior of his spark, but she did. He hadn't expected to ever feel anything for a femme after Zephyr, but as Auri matured, he felt a bit of panic because he started to feel something more than brotherly care.

He was scared to love, but Auri wasn't. She was a little shy, bashful, having never loved before, but she wasn't scared.

He was so terrified, but he accepted the risk slowly, hesitantly, a little bit at a time. He started loving her. Sometimes his logic stamped down on him and made him back away, but Auri understood. She understood, and she trusted. She knew he was hurt, she knew he was broken, and she knew he would never intentionally hurt her. She knew he would come right back to her once his panic subsided.

And he always did. In time, his panic grew less, and his love grew more.

In time, his fear slipped away.

Prowl loves mornings, and his favorite thing about them is Auri's smile and everything she has to tell him.

* * *

Auri loves mornings. She loves them, but she's also highly adaptable about using whatever times works best for her. It's how she is and has been since she was a sparkling. When Auri was tiny, her guardian –a quiet Decepticon- worked long and odd hours, and Auri slept a lot while he was away, catching up on the sleep she refused to get while he was home and up. She wanted to spend every second with him; as soon as he was up, she was up, climbing to sit on his massive blue shoulder, peeping at his red visor, and babbling about whatever tiny sparklings babble about. Once he found a femme to babysit her for him, she changed her sleep schedule around so she would be awake whenever the femme was trying to sleep, and sleeping when the femme was up. Once her guardian found a different femme to be her nanny, one she liked, she molded her schedule according to the new femme's schedule.

One day during Auri's youngling years, her nanny didn't return from a shopping trip, and she waited up until she fell asleep on the floor by the heavily locked door. For over a week, she stayed awake as long as she could, waiting for that femme. But the femme never came, and her guardian never came, and the Energon ran low, so she decided that she would have to try going out herself. She was terrified. She had never gone outside the wall that surrounded the deserted half-bombed-out building she lived in. But she had to go or starve, so she chose to go.

She chose to go early in the morning because that seemed like the safest time. The bombs usually fell in the evening, and the shooting was usually the worst during the afternoon. She was scared to go out, but it was the only option if she wanted to live. She went out early in the morning and tried to find something to eat in the partially rubble buildings. She went out early each morning, looking in different places, trying to find something before her rations ran out. She finally found the remnants of a pub, and while it looked mostly destroyed, she was small enough to climb in under the wreckage of the roof and creep through its dusty, ashy spaces. She found a corpse, and she was horrified because she hadn't realized that the bombs were actually killing Transformers, not just knocking down old buildings. She still had to find food, though, so she crept on, tears in her optics. She found the bar and the dead bartender and potable Energon. She was almost too distressed to eat, but her system was crying for sustenance, so she ate. She choked a little, but she ate.

She was an early morning bot for a while after that, making trips to the pub just before dawn to collect Energon to take it back to her building. Once she'd scavenged the pub clean, she became an afternoon bot, lying on the roof of her building so her doorwings could absorb sunlight. She'd discovered that her doorwings were sort of like mini solar panels, drinking in the sun's energy and feeding it to her system. It helped cut back minutely on how much Energon she needed to drink. It was the wise thing to do because that Energon wouldn't last forever.

Once her Energon store ran halfway out, she made herself a morning bot again to go forage. She had less luck this time around, and she found barely anything, and in time she was traveling far enough away that she had to hide herself in strange places for the afternoon and sleepless scary night before hurrying back home at first hint of morning's light. Eventually, her store of Energon got so small that she could fit all of it into her personal subspace storage, so she did that, and then she scavenged her own quarters for anything meaningful or useful or potentially useful to her and stored in subspace as well. Then she left her home for good, just before dawn.

Each day, she traveled from first light until the sun got high and unfriendly above the wreckage, and then she found a place to hide, sometimes an empty barrel, sometimes a slab of roof lying against its former wall, sometimes a dumpster turned over on its side, sometimes a space in a bombed out building… whatever would work to hide her from other Transformers.

When she finally found an inhabited city and a femme kind enough to let her sleep in her tiny quarters, she remained a morning bot. The other femme entertained mechs at late hours and didn't want a youngling around for that, so Auri went to bed early every evening, stowed away on a fluffy blanket in the lower cabinet in the femme's kitchen. In the mornings, she rubbed dirt on her armor and went out into the street with a mostly empty Energon cube in her hands to beg for whatever a passing Transformer might give her, be it a little Energon or a coin.

Once Auri upgraded to her second youngling frame, she barely fit in the cabinet, and she needed more Energon than she could get from begging on the streets. She needed some kind of job.

"I don't know what to tell you," the other femme said in a discouraged voice. She had a bruise on her face and was recounting her coins, trying to figure out how she was going to both pay the late rent and eat. Some mech had punched her and another hadn't paid for his entertainment. She looked like she was going to cry, and Auri gave her the meager bit of Energon she'd begged off the street.

Auri tried looking around for some kind of job that afternoon, but no one would hire a youngling, not even a second-frame youngling. She got hungry and tired and sat on a bench with tears blurring her optics until the sun started to sink and a big femme passing by told her she'd better scoot on home. By that time, it was too late to get safely back to the other femme's tiny quarters, so she hide herself under some building materials in an alley and waited for morning. When she got back in the morning, there was an eviction notice on the door and no one home.

It took a week of early mornings and discouraging afternoons, but she finally found work helping a tall femme who ran a small armor care shop in the front room of her quarters. The tall femme took dings and dents out of armor, did repainting, deep cleaning, and all kinds of polishing. It was a second shift job, with them starting work in the afternoon and working close to midnight, with a small rush of Transformers dropping off and picking up their armor in the evening. Auri surreptitiously unlocked a window before leaving work, and once the tall femme had left for the day, Auri climbed back in through the window and slept under the tall femme's worktable, making sure to set an internal alarm to wake her well before the tall femme returned. The tall femme was fair, but the work was hard, and Auri overslept one day early on. But she explained herself, and the tall femme, mercifully, was understanding. She didn't let Auri sleep in her workshop, though; she made her at home in her own quarters above the workshop.

Auri spent years there on that afternoon-evening shift, and she thrived there. Not a mean femme, once the tall femme saw that Auri was a bright youngling with a great deal of potential and solid work ethic, she lessened Auri's workload and gave her data-pads of schoolwork, taking on more of a guardian role. And the tall femme taught her the secretarial duties of the job, which were easier than the hands-on work, and Auri took to them eagerly and easily. She upgraded to a third-frame youngling, and the tall femme threw a small party for her. They were happy, despite the war looming somewhere beyond the horizon, and Auri supposed it would go on forever like this, her working in the afternoon and studying in the evening.

It didn't. Auri found the tall femme is tears one day and asked what was wrong.

"Murdering Decepticons," the tall femme said, sobbing. The Decepticons had killed her brother and her betrothed while they were on a security patrol. The war had gotten closer. Then it touched Auri again a few days later. The Autobots requested the tall femme's services for the war, and she had agreed to join them, naturally.

"What about the shop?" Auri asked. Her little doorwings trembled. "What about me?"

"The shop doesn't matter anymore. I'm sending you to live with my aunt."

But when Auri arrived at the address she was sent to, she found a burnt out building on a block of burnt out buildings. She stared at it until her legs hurt from standing there, and then she sat on the front step and hid her face until the sun started to sink. Then a pretty hooker came by and offered to let her crash at her place, giggling when Auri looked at her with doubt.

"I'm not tryna pick you up, sparkling," she said. "I'm just tryna look about for a baby femme."

The hooker's place was an old but clean house that six other femmes also laid claim to. They were amicable and said she was welcome to spend the night up in the attic (a roomier option that her old cabinet, she mused), but when they held a meeting, the general consensus was that she couldn't really stay very long because she was too young to work and they couldn't be running a charity house.

"But I _can_ work," Auri said. "I do secretary stuff and I can polish and repair armor. Not to mention sweep and scrub floors."

She stayed and became a morning bot again, going to bed early in the comfy attic, and then waking up early in the morning to polish armor and clean every unoccupied room. The femmes were friendly and kind to her, so she didn't feel like a little drudge, and most of them were well educated, and they tutored her in schoolwork, for she'd brought her school data-pads with her.

She was content with this, for she truly liked mornings the best, and she enjoyed being useful and getting praised for it. But, like her other positions, this one did not last. Decepticons came to town one day and not just for a quick bit of fun. She hid herself in a box of discarded armor pieces in the attic and shut her optics and prayed hard to Primus that they wouldn't come upstairs or set the house on fire. They did come upstairs, but they didn't see anything that interested them, so they went back down.

She didn't move. Even when the house became deathly silent, she didn't move. The sun sank after a few hours, and she still didn't move. Night settled in, but she didn't sleep. When morning came, the house had been so quiet for so long that Auri thought she might scream. She crept downstairs, afraid, so afraid. She didn't find anyone. They were all gone. She shuddered in horror, but she stayed there several weeks, sleeping in that box of armor during the night, creeping through the house in the morning to get Energon, lying on the floor by a window in the afternoon to catch the sunlight.

She was so scared and didn't know what to do for a while, but she left one morning to find another city and another job. She found both and stayed for a while before moving on. Then moved on again and moved on again. She couldn't stay.

Then one evening she picked up a broadcast from far away, a call from Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. It was a general transmission, but he seemed to be speaking to her in a way. He was on a different planet, one called earth, and he wanted other Autobots to join him there. She had to think about what she was. Her guardian had been a Decepticon, and so had her nanny, but everyone else in her life since then had been blue-opticked and Autobot. She had blue optics herself. And Decepticons had hurt so many of the bots she'd known.

She had no work, but she debated a week before making a decision. It was one thing to travel to another city; it was different traveling to another planet. She was still a youngling, but she would be upgrading to her adult frame in just a few years; she might be of some use to the Autobot cause then, and maybe someone would look after her and care for her like the youngling she was until then. She wanted to be looked after.

She made the decision, and she made the trip. And it was worth it. She was given guardians right away, Ironhide and Chromia, and she loved them. She made new friends. There was endless Energon available for her to drink. No more scavenging. There was an actual doctor. There were new roads, and nothing had been bombed. There were humans, very interesting little sentient beings.

And there was Prowl.

He was the first door-winger she met on earth, and he was an Enforcer, a police-bot, someone who was committed to making the community a safe place. She had long admired that profession, and she admired him with sparkling awe. He made her feel safe, something she loved, having spent so much of her time afraid. It was good to feel safe. He was a little intimidating because he was so logical and stern, but since he was a protector, she knew she was safe with him as long as she behaved. It was the other bots who needed to feel intimidated by him.

She got him to accept her offer to work as his assistant, and it was morning job. The perfect time of day, she thought, and he seemed to agree. And she showed up promptly, and that got her on his good side, which pleased her.

The more time she spent around him, the more she liked him. Her sparkling-ish hero-worship of him slipped smoothly into a femling's crush. He seemed to know it, and it seemed to amuse him and confuse him by turns. She didn't mind that he didn't think of her in any special way; he was kindly protective of her, and that was enough for her.

As the morning work continued, and as she matured, her feelings for him shifted from that silly little crush to something more sensible and substantial. She saw his faults and his struggles, and she saw the goodness and kindness in him. He seemed to have a hard time being truly kind to others, simply being logically kind; she saw his potential, though. She saw that his spark had been broken and needed to be protected. He was a protector, but no one seemed to protect him; it made him prickly and defensive, she realized.

So, she watched over him. She cared for him as no one had, and he came to trust her. He started to make time in the evenings for her, walking her to the beach so they could watch the sun sink down behind the ocean amid vibrantly colored clouds. He started to reciprocate her feelings.

When she finally upgraded to her adult frame, he was her escort to her party.

She was eager to love him, but he was afraid. He was terrified, scared that something bad would happen as it had with Zephyr, and he was afraid that he would let her down somehow.

She reassured him tenderly. She understood that his logic core made him difficult sometimes, and that he was vulnerable in so many ways; she still loved him, and she let him know that she accepted him as he was, glitches and all, and she would continue to accept him because she trusted him. He slowly came out of his shell, and as his fear grew less and his love grew more, he began to find little ways to delight her. A gift of candy, a little kiss, and sweet bit of banter to make her giggle. She reveled in his loving attention, and his smile, much less rare now, warmed her spark with joy.

Auri loves mornings, and her favorite thing about them is Prowl's gentle hint of a smile and his every response to her.


	2. Chapter 1, Praxian Morning

**Chapter 1**

Prowl is having the nightmare again. The one he's had so many times. The one based off reality.

He's standing on the ice, standing between Megatron and Auri, and he can't protect her because he's outgunned and outnumbered by Megatron and the Seekers standing behind Megatron. He can't protect her, but he can keep her from being taken by the Cons.

He kisses her. He thinks it will be the last time he will kiss her, so he kisses her on the lips for the first time, deep and tender with the intensity he'd wanted to give her on a special day.

Then he shoves her off the ice toward the ocean, the icy sea. Her leg hits the edge of the ice with a horrible _crack_ , and he's terrified for a second that she'll get caught, but she falls, smashing into a sheet of ice hard enough to break it and damage her back and crumple her wing.

He found out about her injuries later, but he knows about them now because time and knowledge are warped in dreams.

As Auri falls to sink into the ocean, Megatron yells, yells at the Seekers to get her, yells at Prowl for trying to save her. The Seekers take off, but Prowl calculated correctly: they won't go in the freezing water for a little bargaining chip. They come back.

"She smashed through the ice and sank," one says. Megatron's optics widen and then narrow in rage.

Prowl doesn't move. He waits for the beating to start and the thrashing to begin. A swift death would be nice, but that isn't Megatron's way. Megatron will brutalize him for days and weeks. Maybe Megatron will lose his temper and deal a death blow, but Prowl expects to suffer for months.

Megatron strikes him across the cheek with an open hand, and then as Prowl stumbles from its impact and the impact of losing Auri, Megatron backhands him across the other cheek. Falling sideways, Prowl catches himself on his hands and knees. Life energon drips on the ice. It's his life energon mingled with his tears. Pain explodes in his side and sends him rolling in the snow. Megatron has kicked him for the first time of this encounter, but not for the first time of their acquaintance. He knows Megatron's pedes all too well, and Megatron knows how to kick all too well. Hard enough to damage, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to inflict quickly fatal blows.

Megatron beats him.

There is no point in making a sound, so he is silent, silent lying on the frigid ice as his life-energon stains it. Then they are on the Decepticon ship. Megatron is still beating him. This is only the beginning. He takes the blows and waits for the humiliation that will come next. He remembers what will happen.

Megatron takes a seat on his command chair, but this is where the dream becomes inaccurate. When it really happened, there were only Decepticons watching and smirking. In the dream, though, the Decepticons have been replaced by scores of overpaid humans wearing suits with ties and holding the latest iPhones in their hands. They want him to answer the phone and explain exactly why he thinks they should allow certain funding to go through. They don't understand the basic needs of other living beings, and they talk down to him. They have better places to be, and he's holding them up because he's an over-entitled alien refugee who wants too much. The basic necessities are too much.

Megatron laughs. He taunts Prowl. Useless little mech. Certainly childish, pouting in silence. Bad mechling. Prowl wants to fight what comes next, but Megatron's hand painfully on his doorwings keeps him still, and he is forced to tolerate being bent over Megatron's lap, forced to tolerate having his after-plating pulled off. Megatron hits him with an open hand again now, stinging him with humiliation as well as pain, then Megatron pulls a piece of cable from subspace after a minute and begins to whip him with it. Prowl knows Megatron will not stop until his aft is raw, and then Megatron will transfer the whipping down to his thighs.

Prowl didn't kick when this happened, but he kicks now, kicks in the dream.

He kicks hard.

"Ow!" He never said this. He didn't say this. Someone else did. "Oh-! Prowl! Prowl, Prowl, wake up!" He is shaking; someone is shaking him. "Prowl, mech, wake up."

A little voice chirps sleepily, "Wake up, Pruddle! Wake up an' bad dweams won't get ya!" Tiny hands pat and tap his helm. They are Starlight's hands, and it's Starlight's voice. "Wake up, Pruddle!" she calls.

He shudders and drags himself out of recharge, optics blinking online. He is on his own berth in his own quarters, and the lights are dim because he hasn't been able to sleep in the dark since the Autobots got him back from the Cons. During the long months in med-bay, there had always been lights on, and once he was released to his quarters, he still needed them. He needed to see what was in his room. He still does. He feels hot and cold, and it's too early to be awake, even for an early morning bot. He feels sick from the nightmare and the memories that made it. Praxus and Starlight help ground him, though; they calm him.

"It otay now," Starlight says as she rubs Prowl's helm. "Pwax an me are here."

"Yeah, we're here," Praxus says. His hand is on Prowl's shoulder.

Prowl runs air through his system in a shaky sigh and then shifts onto his side to face his purple-opticked roommate. Praxus is sitting up amid the blankets, his jet black armor reflecting the blue light of Prowl's optics while his doorwings loom dark behind him. Prowl tilts his helm to look up at Starlight, and the tiny blue-opticked sparkling give his nose a gentle poke.

"Ya otay now," she says with a smile, but her little doorwings, just like his own wings and Praxus's wings, silently communicate their concern with little shifts.

"Yes, I am okay now," he answers softly, reaching to give her helm a rub in return. "Thank you," he whispers and then looks toward Praxus again. The younger mech could have been sleeping on the couch in the other room –where Starlight has a little crib- but more often than not he and Starlight sleep in Prowl's oversized berth because Praxus hasn't stopped worrying about Prowl since Megatron brutalized him. The nightmares especially worry Praxus since he is no stranger to their horrors himself.

"It must have been a bad one," Praxus says softly as Prowl's cooling system sighs again. "You really kicked me."

"I'm sorry." Prowl moves his optics to Praxus's legs, and the younger mech shifts to show him the scuff.

"It's just superficial," Praxus says, regarding the mark himself as Starlight scoots to inspect it and trace it with her light blue fingers.

"Still, I'm sorry," Prowl says softly, wings hitching with regret.

"Really, it's okay." Praxus shifts his wings with a bit of a gentle smile as Starlight plants a little kiss on the scuff. "You woke up to handle my nightmares. Now I wake up and handle yours."

"You shouldn't have to, though. You've already been through so much…" Discouragement seeps into Prowl's spark as is has so many times before.

"Aww, don't start that again," Praxus says. "I'm okay now!"

Prowl looks at him and knows he will never be fully okay. Mechs created in a Decepticon lab and experimented on and forced to be child soldiers and later trafficked can never be fully okay.

"I mean okay _enough_ ," Praxus says, reading Prowl's look. "And I barely have my nightmares anymore, so that's a good sign. We just have to look after yours now and help them go away."

Prowl decides not to pursue the subject further, knowing that Praxus will not give in. Prowl is stubborn, but Praxus is just as stubborn and has an unrealistic streak that makes him think anything can be attained if he works hard enough for it.

Starlight pipes up since her elders aren't saying anything. "I don't gets bad dweams."

Prowl and Praxus both smile at this; Prowl's is a gentle relieved smile, and Praxus's is a warm, delighted smile. Praxus scoops Starlight up and snuggles her.

"And that is such a good thing, Little Star!" he says. She giggles as he nuzzles her tummy. "I hope you will never ever have a bad dream."

"Ever!" she adds exuberantly.

"Ever," he echoes. He kisses her on the helm.

"Now Pruddle," she says, and Praxus plops her down by Prowl so she can get a kiss on the helm from him as well. Prowl shifts up to oblige her, and then he settles back down. She looks at his left hand, the hand that Ratchet remade almost completely after Megatron all but destroyed it. "How yo Watchet hand today?" she asks softly as she's asked many times before.

Prowl flexes the digits of the hand slowly, and they tremble as they move, motions still jerky even after months of therapy. "It's a little better than last week, I think," he says, and he knows it is true even if it doesn't quite feel true. Recovery can be discouraging when it is slow, and so it is with his hand. However, because Starlight is the one who is asking, he adds, "I'll have to check, but…"

Her optics twinkle because she knows what he's going to say next.

"I'm fairly certain I can tickle with it."

"Nooo…" she squeals with delight, giggling. He tickles her belly, gently pulsing little charges of energy from his fingertips, making her giggle more. She giggles and giggles and pretends to attempt to avoid his hand. He gets her little side, and she squeaks, flopping over. "Helwp, Bwuvver! Helwwwp!" –giggling harder.

Praxus is laughing softly. "What do you want me to do?" he asks.

"Safe me fwom the Watchet hand! Get Pruddle!"

"I dunno… I'm kinda sacred of Prowl."

She giggles so hard that she snorts, a tiny noise that makes Prowl chuckle. Then she scrambles away from Prowl and hides behind Praxus. "Now he gonna ya instead," she squeaks, peeking out at Prowl and trying to wink at him; she hasn't mastered this and squints before closing both optics.

Prowl smiles back at her. "I don't think so right now. He's so big that I need both hands to tickle him, and I'm not ready to get up or put forth that much effort."

She looks up at her brother and giggles. "I guess ya safe fo now."

"It might be a trap," Praxus says, chuckling softly.

Prowl settles a little more firmly on his pillow. "No. You're safe, mechling," he answers gently.

Starlight giggles again. "My bwuvver not a mechling, I telled ya yesterday. He taller nan ya, an ya gwown-up."

"That is true," Prowl acknowledges gently, "But he is still a mechling to me."

Starlight thinks this over for moments, her little wings shifting slightly. "Well," she says presently. "Will you still fink I'm a femwing when I up-gwade even though I'll be all tall an big?"

"Yes," Prowl says, honest as ever. "But that is a long way away."

A little wing twitches, and Starlight frowns doubtfully at Prowl. "But I'm gonna up-gwade soon. Watchet says so. Ya can't say him didn't say so."

"Oh…" Prowl halfway smiles as he realizes that they are thinking of two different upgrades. "I was thinking about when you upgrade to your adult frame. That is a long way away. Your upgrade that is going to happen soon is into your first youngling frame. You'll be a bit bigger, but not as big as an adult."

Starlight purses her lips thoughtfully and looks down as she tries to remember exactly what Ratchet told her during her last checkup. Then, after another few moments, she smiles slowly as she nods. "Oh, eyah… I kinda forgot." Her optics twinkle. "I be bigger, but not _all_ big."

Prowl nods.

"How big _will_ I be?" Starlight asks him.

He blinks sleepily and holds his finger and thumb apart about the length of his fingers. "Maybe about that big," he says.

She looks at him is disbelief and then giggles. "Ya silly!" she says, shaking her helm. "I'll be at yeast this big." She holds her little hands about an adult hand's width apart.

A soft chuckle rumbles up from Prowl's chest as he smiles at her. "I think you have it figured out," he says, thoroughly pleased that with her return of his joke.

"An ya'll up-gwade, too, an be this tall!" she holds her fingers a small space apart.

Prowl smiles fondly at her. "And how tall will Praxus be?"

"He'll be dust a yittle bigger than ya. An we'll all yiv in th toy-house with mine pwushies!"

"That sounds like fun," Prowl muses sleepily.

Starlight nods. "But, Pruddle, how big really will I be when I up-gwade for actual?"

"I don't know exactly, but when we stand up, your helm will about reach the middle of my thigh."

Starlight looks at the blankets covering Prowl and then at her brother's legs. Her helm reaches their knees at this point in time. "That a good bit taller," she decides.

Prowl nods as Praxus agrees with her and rubs her helm gently.

"An after I up-gwade, we'll have a party, eyah?" she asks, optics wide and wondering. She remembers, albeit vaguely, the party that Auri was given after her final upgrade.

Praxus looks to Prowl for the answer; he'd like to give her a party, of course, but he doesn't know if that's the proper tradition.

"We will indeed," Prowl answers.

Starlight bounces in excitement. "Can we inbite _evewybody_?!"

Prowl pauses, and Praxus guesses that while a party is traditional, inviting everybody for a first upgrade party is a bit unorthodox. Starlight interprets his pause differently.

"I mean, _may_ …?" she amends, dipping her wings to show respect to her elders even as her optics sparkle eagerly.

Prowl is melted. "Yes, we may," he answers.

"An we can all wear sparkles?!"

Prowl laughs softly as he dispenses with another tradition. "Yes, we can all wear our gems and jewels," he answers.

"An ya'll be my excort?!"

Now Prowl falters. Looking after Starlight for the duration of a fancy party would be stressful, to say the least. Not because of Starlight, but because of having to be around all the other bots constantly.

"I thought I would be your escort," Praxus says. Prowl would probably glitch if he had to socialize for a whole evening or afternoon or whatever time a tradition-flouting first upgrade party is held.

Starlight giggles. "Naw… ya gonna excort Moonracer," she says, watching him with twinkling optics.

His wings flick in dismay. "What?! Ew! I don't even like Moonracer."

"I teasing," she giggles. "Ya gonna excort Arcee."

Praxus makes a grudging face. "That's… slightly better. I'd still rather escort you, though. And Prowl has to escort Auri, anyway."

Prowl, his optics slightly closed now, nods in agreement.

"Oh…" Starlight's little wings shift. "I guess we'll fink bout it," she says slowly.

"That's a good idea," Praxus says. "We should go back to sleep now, anyway."

Starlight looks up at him in surprise. "Why?"

"It's still nighttime, and we haven't slept enough."

She frowns doubtfully but starts to scoot toward her pillow. "I don't know bout that…"

"Go check out the front window," Prowl tells her gently.

"Otay," she says obediently and scoots to the foot of the berth. She climbs down the blanket at the end of the berth and then walks off in her cautiously little wandering gait. Ignorant neglect and mistreatment earlier in her sparklinghood had impaired her development, and while her wings have recovered completely, she is still slightly unsteady on her legs. Ratchet expects her to grow out of that, though.

A sigh runs through Praxus's system as his wings lower.

In response, sensitive to the younger mech's spark, Prowl opens his optics. "She'll be okay, mechling."

"Everybody says that," Praxus murmurs with a little nod. "But that's not why I'm sighing –at least, not right now."

"What is the reason, then?"

Praxus lies down, settling his helm on a pillow so he is optic to optic with Prowl. "I… I'm going to miss this… miss being a family… it'll all change when you bond with Auri, and… I'll be happy for you two, but…" he trails off, and rolls his helm to hide his optics against the pillow and look for words. It's hard to find words to explain. He was nearly dead when the Autobots picked up his distress signal, and Prowl dragged him back from the darkness. Prowl hadn't wanted a roommate, but Prowl still said yes when asked to have Praxus room with him. Primus alone knew why. Prowl had let him tag along to the showers when he was scared to go by himself. Prowl had woken him from nightmares and sat with him until he fell asleep again. Prowl had done a hundred little acts of kindness that healed Praxus's spark. Prowl had directed him and guided him, taught him and accepted him. Prowl was father and brother, mentor and guardian. Hero. Best friend. Now that Prowl is dealing with the effects of Megatron's abuse, Praxus has become the giver of care and support and comfort. Still, though, Praxus doesn't know what he would do without Prowl so much in his life, always there for him in the morning and evening and night at home.

Prowl finds words before Praxus does. "Are you thinking that I'm going to evict you when I bond with Auri?" he asks slowly.

Praxus snuffles and nods. Then he turns his helm to peek at Prowl. "Aren't you?" he asks.

"I've never considered it," Prowl answers gently.

"Oh…!" Praxus perks up and smiles. Then he pauses. "Won't we be a bit… snug?"

Prowl shifts a wing. "I'll have to figure out how we're going to all fit and have privacy-"

"Eew, yeah, privacy will be a thing."

"But we have time to sort it out."

Praxus reaches over and touches Prowl's helm. "I worry about your processor sometimes. You should have had this all figured out months ago."

Prowl halfway smiles. Then his focus shifts. "Starlight?" he calls, "Why are you opening the door?"

"I can't see out the window cause it aw dark."

Prowl meets Praxus's optics in amusement at the dark winger chuckles.

"I wonder why," Praxus whispers, teasing.

"She'll figure out," Prowl says gently, optics looking sleepier than before.

"And this is just one reason why I need you," Praxus says, sighing with contentment now that he knows Prowl isn't going to evict him when Auri moves in as his sparkmate. "I usually want Starlight to just listen to me, but you always make the time explain things and help her understand… or have her see for herself."

The door shuts in the other room. "It IS dark!" Starlight announces, amazed.

Optics closing now, Prowl smiles. "Now she knows that you were right," he murmurs.

Starlight comes scampering in and trips on her own pedes. "Oof!" she catches herself. "We gotta sleep lots more yike ya said!"

"Uh-huh," Praxus says, helping her gently back onto the berth.

"An then the earth will roll aroun so we can see the sun again an wake up."

"That's… yeah," Praxus says though he hadn't considered it that way before.

"An then-"

"Shush for now," Prowl says softly.

Starlight snuggles down on her pillow in the middle of the berth and beams at her brother and hand-signs "I love you" to him. He signs the same back to her and then at Prowl who has opened an optic to see what they're doing.

Prowl nods and then settles into recharge.

Morning slips in, and Auri reaches for Prowl's hand in her sleep as her systems start to come online. As she wakes, she realizes that Prowl, of course, isn't there with her. During their months in med-bay, she and Prowl held hands for hours on end, finding comfort in each other's touch when words weren't there. Now, though, she's in her guardians' quarters, in their berth. She's snuggled up against Chromia for warmth, the entire blanket having been kicked off the berth by big pedes. She thinks about retrieving it for herself and bundling up, but that sounds like a lot of effort, given how big the blanket is. And it's about time for her to get up, she realizes on checking the time. She smiles. It's early enough that she can catch breakfast with Prowl, if he isn't hurrying, which he rarely does these days.

Carefully, because Ironhide and Chromia are still in recharge, she rolls away from Chromia so she's closer to the edge of the big berth. Then she stretches, stretches her arms and legs and back, all of her, feeling out the stiffness in her frame. There's always a hint of an ache in her back in the morning, but she's glad that she no longer has to wear a brace and glad that she wasn't taken by the Cons.

Slowly, very slowly, she stretches out her right leg and lifts it delicately, pointing with her pede like a dancer. One day it won't twinge when she tries to hold it out and up. Gently, she lowers it and sits up in one fairly smooth motion. Then she slips off the berth and tiptoes into the main room where she can turn on the lights and check her dusty-rose pink and white and gray armor for scuffs. With the help of a little handheld mirror, she decides that she'll pass inspection after she rubs a little polish on her shoulder and buffs the chrome on her chest plating, going over the circles of the Audi logo of her alt-mode.

Then, because she's feeling adventurous, she picks out a boldly dark lip gloss from the set Elita gave her a while back. She rarely wears lip gloss, but now and then she likes to do something a little different with her looks. This one is shade she's tried in private before but not worn around. Prowl hasn't seen it. It's more of an evening color, she thinks, but she likes it for this morning, and her optics twinkle in anticipation of Prowl's reaction. He thinks he doesn't like surprises, and usually he is right, but she's noticed, noticed for quite a while now, that he likes her surprises.

Smiling to herself, she slips out the front door and shuts it quietly. As she makes her way to Prowl's quarters, she doesn't focus on her limp; she savors the morning, savors its quietness, the slight humidity detected by her doorwings, the pastel colors in the sky, the potential the day has. It could be a very good day.

On reaching Prowl's door, she knocks on it firmly as she shifts to face away from his security cameras. Knowing him, she knows he'll check them reflexively as he moves toward the door, and she wants the lip gloss to surprise him.

The door opens, and she turns a playful smile toward-

Praxus.

The dark mech's purple optics go wide, and his engine makes a little sputter sound. He doesn't look pleased with her, but she knows that her adopted brother has bad mornings sometimes.

From within the quarters, Prowl asks, "Who is it, Prax?"

Without giving Auri his usual happy smile, Praxus turns away, partially closing the door. Auri hears him walk away, and she feels concern build up in her spark. She hears Prowl reiterate his question, and this time Praxus answers.

"A hussy."

Startled, Auri covers her mouth with her hand because her lip gloss is the only thing that could have made Praxus say that.

She hears Prowl say, "What?" in the slow way he uses sometimes when he's trying to figure out what another bot in up to. "There aren't any hussies on this base. If there were, I would know," he says as he comes over to the door. He peeks out and sees Auri, sees her embarrassed look and her hand hiding her lips. A tiny frown turns one corner of his lips down, and he gently makes her lower her hand with a soft touch of his fingertips. He sees the color and the frown vanishes into a tender pleased smile.

"Oh, nothing wrong here," he says gently. He touches the tip of her nose, but she knows from the sparkle in his optics that he would love to kiss her fully on the lips in utter disregard of standard Praxian propriety. They've disregarded propriety more than once, but not in full view of a street, so he simply gives her a sweet little kiss on the cheek and says, "Good morning, sweet spark."

"Good morning," Auri answers with a smile. Then she shifts a wing and leans in toward him a little. "Praxus seemed to think I was hussy, though…" she trails off.

"Mmm…" Prowl thinks this over, and Auri sees a little twinkle enter his optics. "Well, in that case, being an Enforcer, I should probably bring you in for questioning. Make sure you're on the straight and narrow." He raises an optic-ridge in parody of Ironhide's disapproving look, and Auri can't help but giggle.

"Whatever you deem fit, sir," she teases, dipping her wings.

Nudging the door farther open, Prowl draws Auri into his quarters by the hand and then shuts the door behind them.

Praxus is huddled on the couch now, and he looks unhappy. His wings flick angrily when Auri looks at him.

"Praxus, what's-?" she starts to ask, stepping toward him, but he grabs a pillow.

"No!" he shrieks, hurling the pillow at her and ducking down against the couch's seat. "BAD! Bad color! No hurts! Prol!"

Prowl goes to him quickly as Auri swiftly turns away and pulls up her subspace inventory to find a cloth to wipe the lip gloss off with. She finds one and retrieves it, using it while Prowl calms poor Praxus.

"Sh-sh, Praxling, it's okay," Prowl soothes; he makes Praxus sit up and wraps Praxus in a hug. "Auri is making the bad color go away. It won't hurt you. No one's going to hurt you."

Praxus's cooling system gusts hard, his wing hitching as he chokes back sobs of distress. Auri, lips clean now, watches with aching spark but knows Prowl can comfort and settle Praxus better than she can.

"You're safe now," Prowl tells Praxus. "I'm here, and I won't let anyone hurt you." Prowl keeps one arm around Praxus but move one hand to rub the black armor of Praxus's helm and caress his thumb across the purple chevron that accents his forehead. "You're okay, mechling."

"I glitchy," Praxus murmurs, sniffling, settling down.

"We all are to some degree or another," Prowl says comfortingly.

"But you not have M-Y virus to help you glitch," Praxus points out. He shudders and then stills. Then he shifts so he can lean against Prowl and rest his helm against Prowl's helm.

"Are you feeling the virus more?" Prowl asks as Auri starts to venture over cautiously.

"No…. or, I don't think so," Praxus murmurs, still looking somewhat distressed. "It was just a really bad color."

Auri hesitates as Praxus notices her approach. She doesn't want to upset him again, but he seems mostly okay now and gives her a tiny bit of a smile as he motions her over. She goes and slips onto the couch beside him and gives him a snuggle.

"I'm sorry that happened, Prax," she says softly. "I had no idea a lip gloss would trigger a panic."

"Me neither," he sighs. "Stupid virus," he murmurs. "Everybody wears lip glosses, and we have no problem, and then… then you wear one, and it's over. Why can't I be normal?!"

"No one is normal," Prowl says logically. "Normalcy is largely a myth, and-"

"Don't do philosophies at me right now." Praxus sniffles. "I know we're all broken. I just wish I was less broken. Glitching lip gloss for mercy's sake, Prowl."

"I'm sorry, Prax," Prowl answers.

"It's okay," Praxus murmurs. "It's okay. We're okay." He meets Auri's optics. "Most lip glosses should be okay."

She smiles at him and rubs his arm. "I know. I've worn quite a few over the past number of months, and you never panicked."

"Oh… that's good." His system makes a tiny sigh, and she knows from past experience that that tiny sigh usually means the panic has fully subsided.

"Maybe on a good day you can look at my lip gloss set and make sure the rest of the colors are okay," she says. "I don't wear them all that often, but I don't want to risk distressing you when I do."

"That's a good idea," Prowl says gently.

Praxus doesn't say anything for several moments, and Auri knows he's thinking about it.

"I think I can look at them right now," he says after another couple seconds. His smile comes back, betraying his small fangs and making his optics sparkle. "That way you can put more lip gloss on this morning to tease Prowl and make him suffer," he explains mischievously.

Auri giggles softly, glad that her Praxus is back to himself.

"You are the one more likely to suffer, Praxling," Prowl puts in, the mischievousness of his tone far more subtle than Praxus's. "We'll start kissing, and you'll be grossed out."

"Oh, right," Praxus says, making a face. "Never mind, Auri. I take it back. No lip gloss inspection."

"Too late," Auri giggles. "I have the case out, and you shouldn't go back on what you say."

"Scrap. Well, okay."

Auri opens the small box and tells Praxus to wait a moment while she sneaks the "bad" lip gloss out and puts it back in subspace. Then she says presents the rest of the box's contents for his examination.

"That one's bad," he says almost instantly, pointing at one of the glosses. "And I don't think I like that one either," he says, pointing to another.

She removes them.

"Okay. The rest are good," he says with a peaceful sigh.

Auri hesitates. "Even this one?" she asks, pointing out a color very similar to the one that had triggered his panic.

"Uh-huh, that one's fine."

"It's… almost basically the same color as the bad one, though."

"It is almost, but it's not completely. There's a difference. I can tell the difference."

Prowl takes the gloss and looks at it. "I can't…"

Praxus takes it from him, removes the cap, puts two fingers under Auri's chin, and starts gently painting the color onto Auri's lips. "You couldn't see colors for a long time, anyway. I see so many colors that it makes me tired sometimes."

Auri wants to smile at the way Prowl tilts his helm to watch Praxus work, but she keeps her mouth still and keeps her happiness in her spark. Prowl is taking notes, she's fairly certain. What Praxus is doing is intimate, and Prowl can get ideas from it. Another time, Prowl will be the one she lets polish her lips. She wouldn't allow any other mech to do this intimate thing, but Prowl will be her sparkmate, and Praxus is her brother. There is something sweet and close about letting another bot polish her, and Praxus is wholly innocent about it, his past experiences locked away in different compartments.

"There," he says, sticking the cap on the lip gloss container. "All done. Now Prowl can question you for being a hussy."

Auri giggles and shakes her helm. "Oh, Praxus."

"Enforcer, do your job," Praxus says, motioning Prowl toward Auri.

With a soft chuckle, Prowl picks himself up off the couch and takes a few steps to stand before Auri. She meets his optics and her smile answers his smile of approval. Then she watches his wings shift in tiny ways as he tries to figure out how to play this game. He's good at games, but sometimes it takes him a little while to figure out what to do and how to get into them. And sometimes he needs a little help.

Auri gets to her pedes and leans up to Prowl just a bit. "Hi, big mech," she says, making a tiny come-hither motion with her wings.

Prowl pauses as Praxus stuffs his face in a pillow. Then he raises an optic-ridge. "Is that how you address an Enforcer of the law?"

Auri widens her optics and gives him the most innocent look she can manage. "Oh…! Why… no, sir. I have the utmost respect for Enforcers. I…" She puts a daring little finger on his chest and draws it along a line in his armor. "I admire them greatly. _Sirrr_."

"Mm-hmm… We'll see about that," he says. "Come over here." He leads her over to his desk and sits in his chair, leaving her to stand before his desk. She hops up to sit on his desk instead as he takes out a data-pad. "What's your full name and where are you from?"

"Aurion Blaze, and I'm living on earth right now, sir."

"That's a disreputable place," Prowl muses, and Auri giggles.

"Yes, sir. Some parts of it, anyway."

"Where exactly do you live?" Prowl asks.

"I live with my guardians, Ironhide and Chromia, sir."

He taps a finger on his data-pad, and Auri smiles, anticipating a good question. "Why are you wearing that shade of lip gloss?" he asks. "Or, to be more specific, are you wearing that lip gloss with the intent to seduce mechs?"

"Oh, no, sir. I have a mech already, so I have no intent of seducing any other."

"You have a mech already?"

"Yes, sir. A perfectly lovely mech," she answers, and she sees him hide a smile at being called 'perfectly lovely.' "Shall I tell you about him?" she offers.

Melting, forgetting to play at being a tough Enforcer, Prowl nods gently.

Auri scoots off the desk. "Well, stand up and come over here," she says, and he complies, coming over to stand before her. She gazes up at him and nods. "For starters, he's about as tall as you," she says, reaching up and caressing the top of his helm. "And has these nice broad shoulders…" She runs her hands from the base of his throat out to his shoulders and then down his arms. "But what I love most about him is how good he is to me." She slips her hands into his hands. "His logic core is a little glitchy, but even when it makes him difficult, I know that he still loves me." She gives his hands a light squeeze. "He has hands like this… strong, able to punch to a flagrant offender, but also gentle, always ready to help out another bot. And sweet, capable of the tenderest caresses."

"Ewww, mushy," Praxus gripes from the couch, but Auri and Prowl both know he's only pretending to complain and roll his optics. He ships them completely.

"What else?" Prowl asks softly, his optics warm and gentle when she meets them.

"He has this jaw..." She traces with her finger. "It can be very stubborn sometimes, but I find it very kissable most of the time."

"Oh?"

She shows him.

"I see," he says with a smile.

"Sometimes I don't know if he's being stubborn or if he's being patient, but he's consistent and steady, and I like that. I like that I can trust him."

"Trust is important in a relationship," he says with a nod.

"I can trust you two to be mushy faces," Praxus calls from a pillow.

Auri smiles and goes on. She slips around behind him and touches the outer edges of his wings. "He has these wonderful wings. He tries to keep them very still around other bots most of the time, but they still telegraph and tell me things. They whisper secrets. They tell me when he's happy and relaxed. I look forward to making them tell me that he's in absolute bliss."

At this, his wings shift in delight. She detects a bit of anticipation in their motion, as well. As Praxians, doorwingers, she and Prowl will have a pleasure additional to that shared by non-winged pairs.

She plants a soft kiss on the upper-outer corner of his left wing, and then she touches the armor of his back gently. "My love has this strong back that often seems like it is tight and hard from dealing with stress and standing up to difficult situations. When I bond with him and make him all mine, I am going to give him back massages and work all that away so he can relax completely."

"It's a scarred back," Prowl says quietly.

Auri traces his dorsal plating. "I will make him lie down, and I will bare his back and kiss every scar. I will do whatever I can to replace every pain with joy and pleasure, to wipe out every hurt he's suffered and endured. I'm alive because he is scarred, and I won't ever forget that. Ever, _ever_."

Prowl turns and in draws her close, kisses her, kisses her on the lips this time since they're hidden from most optics. She feels his hands trembling a little as he holds her, but hers are firm on the smooth warm armor of his back. His cooling system gusts, and when he's done kissing her, she smiles up into the loving glow of his optics. His lips part, but he falters for words.

She doesn't mind. He struggles for words at times, but she knows his spark.

Then she smiles because her lip gloss, not fully cured yet, has smudged on his lips. With her finger, she gently smooths the gloss more evenly over his lips, and he keeps still though she senses his spark start to pulse faster in response to such touching on so sensitive an area of his face.

"There," she says softly once the gloss is smooth. By this time he has found some words.

"I love you," he whispers.

"And I love you, my Prowl," she answers. "I'm going to keep you forever."

He caresses her cheek with his thumb, and she shifts her helm to kiss his hand. Out of the corner of her optics, she catches Praxus watching them with tender fondness, his expression completely content and happy. When he realizes that he's been seen, though, he grabs the pillow and presses it against his forehead.

"Eeeew, mushy faces! Hussy mushy faces with lip gloss!"

Auri chuckles softly. "I think you're just jealous that you don't have any lip gloss on," she teases gently.

"Oh, nope!" he says. "I'm not. I'm already a sweet temptation without it."

"Now you're making things up," she giggles. "What color would you like?" she asks, getting out the box as she starts toward him.

"I'm not wearing lip gloss!" he yelps, laughing as he scoots off the couch and scampers away, but Auri knows he isn't truly trying to get away because he doesn't try to dodge when Prowl moves in to intercept him. "Grrr!" he growls playfully, resisting Prowl's grasp lightly and engaging in a mock scuffle.

Watching her mechs wrestle, Auri grins, taking delight in the powerfulness of their frames and the tension between their bodies, the sturdiness of Prowl's well-trained ways and sparkling-like erraticness of Praxus's tactics. Their cooling systems gust softly, and Praxus's wings flick in mock aggression while Prowl's only shift slightly now and then with control. As they tussle, Prowl subtly maneuvers Praxus back toward the couch without him noticing until Prowl tumbles him onto his back on the couch and pins him down.

"Here you are, Auri," Prowl says as Praxus kicks lightly and chuckles at how Prowl tricked him into this position.

"Which color shall I use?" she asks, optic twinkling.

"I see a rich purple in there," Prowl says, eyeing the box with mischief.

"No!" Praxus objects, squirming. "Something subtle because I'm a mech!"

"What about this one?" Auri asks, picking out a color only slightly darker than Praxus's lips and tinted with a hint of lavender.

"That's okay," he says, looking content, so she applies it lightly as he holds still. When she's done, Prowl lets him up, and he shakes his wings as he sits. "Now we're all glossy," he says as Auri settles down on the couch beside him. "Where are you going?" he asks Prowl as the older mech starts to move away.

"Someone has to get us energon for breakfast, no?" Prowl responds.

"Oh, okay." Praxus cuddles Auri contentedly. "I'll look after Auri while you're over there."

Auri giggles. "I can look after myself, you know," she says, snuggling against him.

"I know. But it's more fun to look after somebody."

Prowl smiles to himself and opens the energon cupboard. He gets out three regular cubes and a little cube of light grade because he knows Starlight will be waking up before very long. After pouring off a small amount of the energon, he sprinkles in some spices –their favorite copper and a pinch of iron- and then he tops the cubes off with sweet energon. He does all this slowly because of his unsteady hand and because he's amused by the preposterous story Praxus is concocting for Auri's entertainment about how crowded they are going to be when she moves in.

By the time Prowl finishes preparing the energon, Starlight has woken and made her way to the doorway of Prowl's berthroom.

"Good morning," Prowl says to her.

"Good mo'ning," she answers happily. "Oh!" she exclaims with surprise and scampers into the room, heading for the couch. "Evy'y body wearing yip gwoss! Are we having a party?"

"Not officially," Prowl answers with a half smile.

"Aw, Pwax, what's that word?" she asks, reaching the couch. It's always Praxus's job to explain Prowl's difficult vocabulary because Prowl may or may not end up using more words she doesn't know when he tries to clarify something.

Laughing softly, Praxus scoops his baby sister up and cuddles her. "It means we weren't planning on having a party, but we could go ahead and have one."

"Oohh…!" She giggles. "Guess I need yip gwoss, too, huh?"

"I have a bunch you can pick from," Auri says, taking out her set again.

"Um," Praxus says, his wings shifting with doubt. "I don't know if lip gloss is for sparklings."

"Oh." Starlight's wings lower. "Do ya know?" she asks Auri.

"I don't know…" Auri says. "I never had any until I came here. What do you say, Prowl?"

Prowl hands her a cube of energon with a smile. "It's not very common. But a little now and then won't be an issue unless it makes her vain," he says, handing Praxus a cube.

Starlight makes a face. "I wouldn't be a pwetentious bain," she declares. "I don't yike 'em!"

Praxus chokes, and Auri stifles a giggle.

"I couldn't imagine you would," Prowl says with a soft chuckle. "Nobody does."

Prowl settles down on the couch beside Auri while Starlight peers at Auri's lip gloss box.

"I want a… bwue color," she decides. "'Cause mine armor bwue. Pwease."

"I think this silvery blue would be really pretty," Auri says, pointing one out.

"Ooooh! Yeah! It's perfic!" Starlight bounces. She beams up at her brother but finds him looking a little pensive. "Is it a perfic color fo me?" she asks.

He halfway smiles. "It is a perfect color for you."

Starlight looks back at the lip gloss and thinks for a few moments. Then she smiles up at her brother reassuringly. "It's okay, Pwax. I won't kiss mechs wiff it."

He doesn't say anything as Auri applies a light layer of the pretty color to Starlight's lips, and then he shifts his wings as Starlight scampers off to see how she looks in the mirror in Prowl's berthroom.

Auri looks at him and sees his expression. "What's wrong, Prax?"

"She's going to grow up," Praxus says softly. "And…" He falters and swallows. "She's going to show up with a mech-friend one day, and what if he's a fragger?!" he yelps.

Prowl chuckles at Praxus, amused yet sympathetic. "Praxling, she's a pretty sensible little femme even at this age. I don't think you will need to worry at all about what kind of mech she'll pick."

Praxus recovers a little. "I guess that's true…"

"And in the odd chance that she does find a bad one, we'll scare him off," Auri says.

Praxus considers this and then smiles. "Okay."

Starlight comes back giggling. "I look funny," she says. "Pretty, but also funny."

"It does make you look a bit different," Auri says with smile as Prowl lifts the sparkling onto the couch and gives her the little energon cube.

"Thank-you," Starlight says, holding her cube with both hands. She sips the energon and declares that it is "yummy" and then she looks up at Prowl with a question. "What's the denda for today?"

"The agenda for today is we have breakfast, and then we tidy things up," Prowl starts. "After which, we go to med-bay so Auri and I can do our physical therapy and you can get a checkup."

"So I can up-gwade?!" she asks, and the adults smile at her excitement.

"Your upgrade doesn't rely upon the checkup, but the checkup is… helpful regarding your upgrade," Prowl answers.

"Okay!" She wiggles her pedes. "Then what?"

"Auri and I will go to work at the office, and Praxus will do his studies and you will do your pre-school."

"Oh-! But can I go to the office instead? I did pre-school last week."

"Did you learn everything?" Auri asks with a soft giggle.

"I learned colors an I drew things, an I learned 'bout Pwaxus –not my bwuver, but our city- 'cept our city is all gone because bad bots came an killed it!"

Prowl's wings twitch. "What?" His tone is suddenly sharp, and Starlight looks up at him with startled optics.

"Our city got killed," she says softly. "Bad bots did it. Didn't ya know? I thoughy ev'y-one knew…"

"I knew," Prowl says, wings lowering. "I… didn't mean to speak sharply. It's just… I didn't know you knew. You're little and don't need to know that kind of thing yet, or bear that kind of burden."

"Oh," she says, but she doesn't seem to truly understand, and she moves on. "I learned other things, too, an I learned a Merry-can human baby song for my cultural awareness class. It goes ' _head an shoulders, knees an toes, knees an toes… eyes an ear an mouth an nose…_ ' an… so on." She giggles. "It's kinda silly, but I yike it."

"It sounds fun," Auri says.

"Yeah! But, I still would yike to go to the office."

"Well," Prowl says, hiding a smile. "It is on the agenda that you and Praxus will pick up lunch and bring to the office so we can have lunch together."

"Oh! Okay!" Starlight beams. "That's good nuff!"

"And then after that, Auri and I will have some work, and you and Praxus will go do art."

"An get paints on us maybe," Starlight giggles.

"Maybe," Praxus says, though he fully expects so.

"An then do we come back here for dinner?"

Prowl looks a little wistful. "Yes, after you do art, you and Praxus will come back here for dinner with Auri and me."

"But why ya look sad, Pruddle?" Starlight asks.

"Because while you and Praxus are doing art, I have to do meetings and listen to conference calls with difficult humans, and that won't be very fun."

"Aw. But… Auri will help ya, yeah?"

This brings Prowl's smile back.

"I definitely will," Auri says, meeting Prowl's optics lovingly. "I'll make everything I can a bit easier and nicer."

"Then it's a good denda for today," Starlight decides.


	3. Chapter 2, Work and Play

**Chapter 2**

 **Work and Play**

Once the breakfast energon is finished off, the four Praxians scatter to tidy up Prowl's quarters. Praxus takes the tasks of wiping down the table, cleaning the energon cubes, and polishing the sink while Auri sweeps the floor and Prowl runs a dusting cloth over his desk and washes the windows. Not to be left out of the cleaning, Starlight wriggles her tiny body under the couch to chase out dust bunnies and find several misplaced toys, one of Prowl's styluses, and a few of Praxus's little paint containers.

"Oh, so _that's_ where they were," Praxus says when Starlight shows him. "Thank you for finding them."

"Ya welcome!" she replies before scampering to return Prowl's lost stylus to him. She pauses at the pile of dirt and dust Auri has swept up. "Wow! That a lot! An we just cleaned two days ago!"

"This is a pretty dirty planet," Auri says, smiling at the sparkling's amazement. "But I like it."

Starlight crouches down to inspect the gritty debris. "Uh-huh. There sand in it, just yike I thought so."

Auri laughs with happy memories. "Now where do you suppose that came from?" she asks, teasing.

"Well, first the beach, but then Prowl's an ya's pedes," Starlight answers sensibly. "An the dirt came from Pwax's pedes 'cause he didn't wipe 'em at the door yesterday yike he was 'posed to."

"None of it came from your pedes?" Auri asks, curious to see what Starlight will say.

"None. I was muddy, an theren't any mud here."

"Ohhh…" Auri says, suppressing a chuckle.

"Yeah!" Starlight says, and then she scampers off to see what else she can find under the couch.

Auri resumes her sweeping with amusement and works her way over to Prowl at the window. She's about to swipe the broom across his after-plating to tease him when she realizes that he's slightly preoccupied with frowning up at where the wall meets the ceiling, so she looks up as well.

"Spiderweb?" she queries.

"Yes," he says with a sigh. "Quarters were never this hard to keep clean on Cybertron." He looks at her and halfway smiles. "I am glad we are here, though."

She kisses his cheek. "I'm glad, too." Then, flipping the broom upside down, she angles it up toward the offending cobweb. It doesn't reach, however. "We'll have to call in Optimus," she jokes, standing on tiptoe in vain. Even Praxus, who's slightly taller than Prowl wouldn't be able to reach it because, despite the Praxians being of relatively small stature, the quarters were designed to accommodate even a mech of the Prime's height.

"I've thought of an alternative," Prowl says.

"And that is…?"

"Teamwork. If you'll sit on my shoulders, you can reach that high."

Auri smiles up at him. "I like that idea," she says. "How will I get there, though? I'm not a little scrap you can just scoop up over your helm."

He leads her over to the couch and guides her to climb up onto the armrest facing the couch and away from him.

"Scoot your legs apart," he directs.

"What-!?" Praxus yelps, whirling away from his work and spattering soap on the floor.

Auri giggles. "Oh, Praxus. Not everything is… what you're thinking."

"It could be," he says warily, looking mildly alarmed.

Prowl bows and, putting steadying hands on Auri's legs, he moves forward to put her on his shoulders. Her wings shifting to help find her balance, she puts both hands on Prowl's helm and digs her pedes against his chest as he straightens.

Praxus, still looking mildly alarmed, hasn't taken his optics off them. "If you fall and hurt yourselves…" He pauses. "Ratchet will kill you," he decides.

"We'll be fine," Prowl assures him, rubbing a thumb against Auri's leg armor. She's well balanced on his shoulders, and he has a secure hold on her; his "Ratchet hand" may be clumsy, but it's reasonably strong. He isn't worried, and she's quite comfortable.

"How do I steer?" she teases.

"Um… I'll steer," he answers. Then he belatedly realizes that there had been an opening for an amusing quip of some sort and he'd missed it.

"Yip-yip, Prowl," Auri says, and he halfway smiles.

Carefully, not wanting to throw Auri off balance with any quick moments, he goes back to the wall, keeping a firm grip on both of her legs with each hand. Then he retrieves the broom to hand up to her. She keeps one hand on his helm and holds the broom with the other and pokes at the cobweb and tries to stay focused on the task at hand. Prowl's frame is warm under her thighs, and his hands, though gentle in holding her legs in place, feel strong and reassuring.

Once Auri's cleared out the cobwebs, Prowl turns slowly around so she can inspect the walls for any additional arachnids.

"I think that was the only one," Auri decides.

"You didn't check the berthroom," Praxus says, glancing over from his own work with a cheeky look.

"You're a pest," Prowl answers, but Praxus's teasing has struck a practical point: there could be cobwebs in his berthroom. With Auri still on his shoulders, he goes to his berthroom, and they look around.

"There's a small one… at ten o-clock-ish," Auri says, so Prowl crosses the room, and she sweeps the web down. "There you go."

"Thank you. That would have annoyed me once I knew it was there."

Auri smiles. "I think you mean it would have _bugged_ you."

Prowl tilts his helm.

Auri waits, optics twinkling.

"Oh…" Prowl says. He halfway laughs, and Auri feels the vibration from his chest more than hears the laugh. "I get… what you intended, but spiders are not bugs."

"I know. But they're closer to bugs than they are to elephants." It's a silly comparison, and she knows it; she chose it on purpose with a smile of anticipation.

Prowl's wings twitch and brush up against her armor, as she'd hoped they would, soft like a butterfly kiss. Prowl pauses at the contact, and then he settles his wings down. Gently, he rubs his thumb on her leg where it is as he starts back to the doorway.

"It is a good thing there is not a limit to the amount of mischievousness allowed in one household," he says. "Or I would have to pick between you and Praxus."

"Or you would have to move out once I moved in," Auri quips.

Prowl chuckles softly at that. Then he takes her back to the couch, helps her down from his shoulder and then hands her down from the couch. She can't help but give him a little kiss once she's standing before him. He smiles and looks like he's going to go for a second kiss, but Starlight crawls out from under the couch right at Auri's pedes.

"I all done cleanin," Starlight reports, a dust bunny hanging on one of her wings and dust smudged on her armor and face.

"You should probably clean yourself now," Auri says, repressing a fond giggle. "You're as dusty as the floor under the couch was."

Starlight inspects her armor. "Oh, wow…" She scampers off. "Pwax! I need a scrubby! –please!"

Auri slips her hand into Prowl's hand but holds him away from her and looks him over. "I'd better check you for dust, too," she says. "And cobwebs."

He turns for her, flaunts his wings a little, and she bats his aft with the broom.

"Okay, good to go," she says. "Now I'll finish the floor."

Once the cleaning is done –and everyone's armor is checked for dust and smudges, the four Praxians head out the door and shift their wings in the early morning sun, taking in the warm energy of the rosy rays.

"It a good mornin!" Starlight exclaims, flicking her wings. "I could fly!"

Laughing happily, Praxus scoops her up and dashes off, playing airplane with her and making her giggle.

Prowl and Auri, holding hands, walk at a normal pace and get left behind, but they are clearly content with that. Before long, Praxus and Starlight are a whole block ahead of them and turning a corner.

"Did you sleep well?" Auri asks softly, and she senses a momentary tensing of his hand once she says the words.

"Mostly," Prowl answers. "Praxus woke me up from a nightmare, but the rest of the night was good. And your night?"

"It was good. Ironhide or Chromia kicked all the blankets off the berth, though. Again." She smiles, not actually complaining.

"Well, you know, I don't kick the blankets off the berth."

Auri giggles. "Well, hurry up and propose so we can bond, and I will spend all the nights with you."

Prowl halfway laughs. "So many optics are going to twitch when we announce our engagement after so short a time of knowing each other as it is."

"True. So several weeks won't make that much difference."

Prowl's wings shift with approval, but he shakes his helm slightly. "We set a date. I'll keep to that date. Besides, Optimus needs…" He pauses and looks around and shifts his wings to scan the area. "Optimus needs those weeks to get our home finished up."

The two words "our home" fill Auri's spark with warmth and joy, and she squeezes his hand softly.

"Has he said how it's coming along recently?" she asks.

"He's been vague, but I reason to believe some bots are painting the walls now, and if so, that would mean it's nearing completion."

"Ooh!" Auri's wings flick with excitement. "So, next they'll finish the floors and put furniture in?"

"That is the usual order."

"And then we can decorate…!"

Prowl nods. "And hope Praxus doesn't have any crazy ideas about what style and sort of decorating we should do."

Auri giggles. "It couldn't be that bad."

"He spends far too much time with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe for me to wholly trust his judgment. You know what their quarters look like."

Auri shifts a wing in acknowledgement of his point. "Somewhat like an art museum storage room after an earthquake and two tornados."

He chuckles, turning a fond smile toward her. "Rather so, though I hadn't thought of it precisely that way."

"I guess if he wants to stick art everywhere, we'll limit that to just his room," Auri decides.

Prowl nods.

"Do you think Praxus suspects anything yet?" Auri asks with a little laugh.

"He doesn't. After we woke in the night, we started talking, and I discovered that he was under the impression that he and Starlight were going to be evicted when I bonded with you."

"Oh, no…" Auri's optics widen. "So he must have been thinking that all along- Poor mechling!"

"He did tear up a bit when he confessed what he was thinking. But he perked up entirely once I told him we'd all be together, and then his next concern was for how we would all fit. I had to prevaricate on that point, so then he worried about my processor because he thought I should have figured out how to house the lot of us quite some time ago."

Auri chuckles, anticipation making her grin. "Won't he be surprised!"

"We all will be to some degree," Prowl says with reason. He'd planned out some modest renovations to his quarters that involved putting a doorway between them and the quarters next to them and adding a few things, but Optimus had looked at the request and made a request of his own: let him, Optimus, take care of housing for their family-to-be. Prowl had hesitated, and the Prime had said, "I would like to do something better than this for you." Prowl had still hesitated, thinking about himself, but then he'd thought of Auri and Praxus and Starlight and the sparklings who would eventually join them, and then he'd dipped his helm and said "thank you."

"Are you worried about it?" Auri asks.

Prowl shakes his helm. "I trust Optimus."

"I trust him, too," Auri says. Then they slip into a companionable silence, each thinking their future home in different ways: Prowl wondering what sort of schedule they will work out as a non-traditional family, and Auri musing about how different it will be to share a home with a mech –her mech- instead of other femmes or couples.

When they finally reach med-bay, they find Praxus and Starlight are waiting in front of med-bay for them; Praxus is sitting on the steps, and Starlight is walking along a crack in the sidewalk, trying to keep one pede on either side of the crack.

"Did you get lost?" Praxus asks pertly.

Prowl pats him on the helm. "Only in thought," he answers. Then he and Auri walk up the ramp to the front door of med-bay, and Praxus, who scooped up Starlight scampered up the steps, holds the door open for them.

"Ya lost ya's thoughts?" Starlight asks Prowl as Praxus follows him into med-bay.

"He meant he was thinking so much that he sort of got lost," Praxus explains simply before Prowl can explain in encyclopedic form.

"Ohhh…" Starlight says.

Then Ratchet is there, saying "Good morning" in a way that implies he could have done with a little more sleep but still cares for them greatly.

"Good morning," Auri answers, slipping up to hug him fondly and get cuddled by one of her favorite bots.

"Me too," Starlight says, reaching for Ratchet, so Ratchet picks Auri up and holds her on his hip with one arm and then takes Starlight with his other hand, hugging her gently against his chest armor. He plants a kiss on her little helm, and then she wriggles and climbs to his shoulder. She's about to kiss him back when she pauses. "Aren't you a mech?" she asks, craning back a little to look him over.

Ratchet pauses because he wasn't expecting this question, but then he nods. "I am."

"Oh." Starlight looks mildly inconvenienced. "May you put me down, please?"

A baffled expression crosses the old medic's face, but he complies with the tiny femme's request, lowering both her and Auri to the floor, and she scampers away instantly while Auri watches her with a curious look.

"Do you have a problem with mechs now?" Ratchet asks the sparkling when a glance at Prowl and Praxus shows him that her behavior is mysterious to them as well.

"No," Starlight answers, starting to climb up the drawer handles on a cabinet. "I just told Pwaxus that I wouldn' –" She grunts as she pulls herself onto the countertop. "-kiss any mechs wi' lip gloss on me," she finishes as she crawls toward the sink.

"Oh…" Ratchet says, smiling now that he understands. "That's good of you to honor your word," he tells her.

Starlight nods as she pushes the sink handle forward, starting a trickle of water. "Yeah, I'm honorable sparkling," she states as she starts to climb down into the sink to wash her face. "An not a pwetentious-" She loses her balance and disappears from sight with a tiny surprised yelp. Then a little giggle echoes up from the sink. "I'm gonna need a bigger towel than I thought," she says.

"That's certain," a husky yet feminine voice says from a doorway.

"Uplink!" Starlight's face peeks over the edge of the sink to grin at the blue and gold and white-accented femme. "Good morning!"

"Good morning, little one," the older Praxian says, coming over to the sink.

"I was pwannin to wash mine face, but I falled," Starlight explains.

"You could have gotten a cleansing cloth from your brother or Prowl or Auri, though this way works, too," Uplink says, her blue optics twinkling in fondness and amusement.

Starlight peeks over at the other Praxians. "Why not you give me a cleansin cloth?" she asks them.

"We didn't know what you were doing until you were almost to the sink," Praxus answers.

"Oh. That fair," Starlight says. Then she scrubs her mouth and face, and once she's satisfied with her washing, she looks to Uplink for assistance. Uplink puts her right hand down and gently boosts Starlight up from behind, and Starlight climbs onto the counter.

"Stay seated so you won't slip in your puddles," Uplink directs her, retrieving a towel.

"Yes'm," Starlight answers. She rubs her face vigorously in the towel, and then Uplink gently dries her little wings and back. "How's yo Watchet arm an hand?" she asks, peeking at Uplink's left arm and motionless hand.

"They're doing well," Uplink answers, lifting the hand in question and flexing its fingers a hint to show the sparkling.

"Prowl's Watchet hand keeps ticklin me," Starlight says.

Uplink smiles. "I'm sure mine will start doing that, too, once it gets well enough."

"Is the Cwosion twyin to still get it?" Starlight asks softly, gently rubbing Uplink's forefinger.

"Yes… but Ratchet's medications are still beating the Corrosion." Uplink's right wing shifts. "There now, you're all dry. Scoot down and go give Ratchet his kiss."

"Thank-you!" Starlight climbs down the drawer handles and scampers back to Ratchet, Uplink following her over to the other bots. Auri hugs Uplink as Ratchet picks Starlight up again.

"How's my Auri?" Uplink asks.

Auri smiles up at her, snuggling. "Doing well."

"Good."

Uplink starts to say something else, but she pauses as she hears Starlight telling Ratchet about the upgrade party she is going to have.

"Evewybody gonna be inbited! An we all gonna wear sparkles and jools!"

"That sounds like it will be fun," Ratchet says.

"An we'll have food an dancin, an Pwax gonna excort me 'cause Pruddle gotta excort Auri."

"Naturally," Ratchet says with a smile. "We should start this morning's therapy now so everybody will be fit for this party."

Starlight giggles. "Yeah! It gettin late."

The therapy room has padded mats on the floor for yoga and other gentle workouts, comfy ergonomic chairs, and a couple massage tables, among a few other things. Auri loves it. While the therapy can be a bit of work, the atmosphere of the room is so healing and friendly that she doesn't mind if her leg aches or her wing twinges. She likes the freeness, too, of not wearing all her armor. She slips her thigh armoring off and tucks it in subspace, and does the same with some of her back armor. The air is cool where she is bare, and it seems to caress her. She glances toward Prowl. His wings are twitching because Praxus is helping him get his back armor off and he doesn't like it. Once Prowl's armor is off, he seems to accept it, but getting it off always puts a small scowl on his face.

Auri settles down on a mat to start her warm up stretches, and Uplink sits on the adjacent mat, legs lightly crossed, hands resting on her knees. Starlight plops down facing Uplink and crosses her own legs.

Cycling air through her system, Auri sinks into a stretch, gently reaching, making her muscles wake up. She closes her optics lightly and focuses on her frame as she holds the stretch. Then, pulling out of the stretch, she opens her optics and peeks toward Prowl again. Ratchet has him lying on a massage table now, chin on a pillow, and is explaining something about muscle groups to Praxus as he motions while directing the purple optics toward Prowl's lower back.

"How is your wing doing today?" When Uplink asks, it's a genuinely caring question, not a chit-chat inducing query.

Auri shifts the wing in question. "It's still a bit sore," she answers. "I guess I'll know for next time to get out of the wind when Prowl suggests it," she adds. "Even if we're having a good time."

Uplink smiles. "Fun does have its consequences now and then, and the beach does seem to draw one in."

"Yeah…" Auri looks mischievous. "How many times has Ratchet had to scold you and Chromia for walking too far on it and wearing you out?"

"We quit counting," Uplink answers with a slight smirk. "Though I'm sure Ratchet has a tally."

"It'll be nice when we can all just go out of the beach for hours and hours and hours and not come in feeling beat up," Auri muses, leaning back on the palms of her hands. She arches her back, tilting her helm back, pinning her wings back. The stretch feels good but causes a little twinge at the same time. She straightens out of it slowly, her cooling systems sighing.

Ratchet comes over after a few minutes to see how she is doing and to remind her gently about things she hasn't done yet but also hasn't forgotten. She listens and nods. He will always do this, always look after her carefully and closely. Some bots find him too protective and think he is micromanaging them, but Auri knows it's his way of expressing how much he cares.

Once Auri's progress is checked, Ratchet picks Starlight up and sits down cross-legged before Uplink where Starlight had been sitting, his knees almost brushing against Uplink's. He settles Starlight in the nest of his leg armor and then his hands gently go to Uplink's hands. Her left hand and arm, carefully and painstakingly created from synthetic material and donor material, severely lack the skill and mobility that her right hand and arm, fortunately original, have. Ratchet was able to recreate the limb almost perfectly, but the Corrosion had taken its toll on her system in many ways, and manually integrating the new arm and hand fully with her relays and various hardware had been unachievable. Still, what he had been able to do was medically significant as well as personally encouraging to Uplink, who'd previously been told that amputation was her only option. He'd given her hope with this new arm, and now they just have to work on therapy and see if her system will integrate the arm on its own.

Ratchet's fingers guide and direct Uplink's to fold one by one to her palm on both her right hand and her left hand simultaneously, mirroring each other. Her left hand must learn from her right hand.

Auri watches for a little while, studying how the fingers work; she knows how they work already, but she still likes to watch. Later in the therapy session, she'll be helping Prowl with his fingers in the same way. Since Praxus is training to be a physical therapist, he should be the one working with Prowl's fingers, but Ratchet found that Prowl cooperated better with Auri, so he compromised and settled on having Praxus and Auri take turns working with Prowl's fingers. Today is Auri's day.

Once Auri's stretches are done and Uplink's fingers have had their work, Prowl comes over and Auri goes to the massage table. As their paths cross, they brush fingers and smile at each other and glance where armor is missing. A little thrill runs up through Auri at the thought of soon being able to run her fingers up and along the lovely sculpting of his muscular thighs. The sparkle in Prowl's optics when they meet hers again tell her he has similar thoughts, and her cooling system kicks on. She scoots to the massage table then and settles down on it.

"How is your back feeling this morning?" Praxus asks as if he is a seasoned professional masseuse instead of her adopted brother who constantly acts grossed out by her "mushy-facing" with Prowl.

"It's doing pretty well," she answers. "It's a little tight in here, though," she adds, rubbing an area.

"Okay. We'll focus there a bit then. And how's your leg?"

"Still kinda sore from the other day we spent too long on the beach."

He asks a few more questions like he's supposed to, and then, after rubbing sweet oil on his hands, he begins to gently work on her back, teasing out the sore areas and carefully accessing pressure points to release tension elsewhere in her body.

Completely relaxed, Auri smiles with contentment and pride. Praxus is so good at this, and she's so proud of him for pursuing a healing practice. The scientists who created him had meant for him to be a very destructive little creature, but that wasn't his primary nature. He wanted to look after other bots. He'd tried to look after his lab-brothers. He'd looked after Starlight after he'd found her. He'd been afraid that bots wouldn't want him working in a med-bay given his forced history of violence, but Ratchet has supported and encouraged him. He belongs here, in med-bay, healing. It makes him happy, Auri knows, and he has a knack for it.

"How is this feeling?" he asks, and Auri murmurs that it feels very good. Then they hear Starlight giggle.

"Yeah, battle of the Watchet hands!" she chirps.

Auri and Praxus both look over and find Prowl and Uplink smiling at each other with wings lightly flicking with mock tension.

"Yas can arm wrestle!" Starlight says.

"Ah, no," Ratchet says firmly. "They're just teasing," he says deliberately, telling the older Praxians as much as he is telling Starlight. "No arm wrestling."

But he didn't say, "No _wrestling_ ," so Uplink is quickly yet carefully pinning Prowl on his back the next moment and putting her left elbow against his cheek. Prowl twists, bare leg muscles flexing as he works to find a way to reverse the situation without injuring Uplink in any way.

Ratchet, making a scolding sound, pulls Uplink back. "I fixed you two; I don't need you breaking each other."

Uplink and Prowl smile, knowing they wouldn't, but they shift their wings in submission to Ratchet.

Auri reflects on the fact that Prowl has now wrestled with two bots this morning. He used to wrestle with her a little when he was teaching her and Praxus self defense classes, but they haven't had those since they were injured. She'd enjoyed the gentle tension between their bodies and the physical contact and feeling how strong and warm Prowl was.

She still thinking about it when it's time to get off the table and work with Prowl. She goes over to him, a gentle reminiscent smile still hinting around her lips, and he smiles up at her from where he is seated on the mat. She settles in front of him, knees brushing.

" _What are the thoughts of my femme?_ " he asks in the Praxian language, yielding his hands to her ministrations.

" _I was remembering when I was the one you wrestled with,_ " she answers in Praxian fairly well. She hasn't fully mastered what should have been her natural tongue, but she's getting close.

"Oh…" He smiles. He stiffens a finger against her hand, resisting her direction. " _Shall I be difficult so you can try to make me behave_?"

" _And get scolded by Ratchet?"_ she asks with twinkling optics.

Praxus leans over. " _You know Uplink and I know every word of Praxian you're saying_ ," he whispers in Praxian. " _In case you hadn't thought of that."_

Prowl looks mildly exasperated, and Auri suppresses a giggle. Praxus scampers off to wipe down the massage table, but Uplink is still there.

"A good tussle is fun," Uplink says with a sympathetic chuckle. "But Auri does have a point. Ratchet will scold."

"Later then," Prowl says, and he seals this word with a kiss on Auri's finger.

When therapy is over and armor is back in place and they've all gone back to the main room of med-bay, Prowl collects a report data-pad from Ratchet and hugs Starlight and Praxus.

"Have fun learning many things," he tells them as Auri hugs them as well.

"I will!" Starlight chirps, and Praxus grins as he echoes her words.

Then Prowl hesitates as he meets Uplink's optics, and they both open their mouths to say something. Uplink dips her wings to him in deference to his rank as second in command, but he shifts his wings in deference to her as eldest Praxian.

"I would like a word with you in private, please," she says.

Prowl's wings don't move, and Auri reads that as a little apprehension. "I was going to say the same thing," he says.

"Oooh, you're both in trouble with each other," Praxus teases.

Uplink's wings shift at him. "Prowl is not in trouble with me."

Praxus dips his wings respectfully, reading in her silent "but you could be if you're going to be impertinent," and then scoots away with Starlight. He knows Uplink is full of fun, but he also knows not to cross the alpha female of their tiny Praxian community.

Auri wonders what Prowl and Uplink have to say, but she doesn't ask; she smiles up reassuringly at Prowl and then follows after Praxus.

The two older Praxians seek the privacy of a side room, and Prowl shuts the door with his right hand because his left hand feels shaky. He knows he's not in trouble; Uplink said he wasn't in trouble. But Megatron ploughed deep into his spark and sowed a heavy crop of fear. Anxiety rises with little call.

"Peace, Prowl," Uplink says. "I merely wanted to say I noticed that you did away with the traditional sparkling upgrade party-"

Prowl wings shift in sudden distress. "I'm not trying to spoil her," he says swiftly. "I just have little else to give her-!"

"Oh, Prowl," Uplink says gently, taken aback at his response. "I'm not faulting you. I'm not faulting you at all."

He cycles some air through his system. Her wings are at a non-threatening tilt, and that helps calm him.

She rubs his arm soothingly. "I simply wanted say, I was wondering if this might indicate that you might be interested in dispensing with another Praxian tradition."

He hesitates. "Which…?"

"The traditional length of time Praxians are supposed to wait before bonding," she says.

His wings twitch up in surprise and relief. "Oh-?"

She chuckles softly. "I do hold with many of our Praxian ways, but there are others that I shake my helm at."

"I… I have noticed that on a couple occasions," Prowl manages to say. Then his wings shift up in curiosity. "You would not frown on us if we… bonded much sooner?"

"I wouldn't." Uplink smiles. "And I think most of the non-Praxians aren't that privy to our customs, and the other few Praxian on base probably wouldn't take issue. You and Auri are clearly a match and clearly love each other and clearly know each other's ways. The traditional waiting time has or had its purposes, but it's not fit for every pair. If you're holding off because of custom, I want you to know I don't think it is necessary."

Prowl meets her optics with a shy smile. "I am glad," he says. "We were going to risk making you frown, but now there is more joy in my spark knowing that you approve."

"I see now you're way ahead of me," Uplink says with a twinkle in her optics. "Shall we expect the engagement next week?" she teases.

"No, no," Prowl says, laughing now. "It's still several weeks away. Though Praxus thinks we're secretly engaged."

Uplink's wings shift in wonder. "Oh… that never crossed my processor. I simply thought it was unfair that you two felt you had to wait because of some dusty custom our ancestors thought up."

"I am fairly good at breaking rules when I see fit," Prowl says, one wing tilting.

Uplink smirks lightly. "I'm sure Optimus can vouch for that." Then she motions and changes the subject. "Now, what words did you want with me?"

Prowl's wings become still, even a little stiff. "You have been kindly generous is not faulting me for my lenience with Starlight…" he says. "But… I cannot help but find fault with you for telling her about the fate our city. 'Bad bots killed it' –She did not need to know that."

"I tried to keep it from her," Uplink answers quietly, her good wing lowering. "She saw a picture of the Praxian Crystal Gardens in one of the little study books, and she wanted to know everything… Where is that? Why are they all Praxian? Can we go there? Why can't we go? But it can't be too far away, no? Why would the travel be dangerous and long? But we came from there, so why can't we go back? She asked so many more questions. I tried to change the subject every time, but she persisted, so I told her flat out that we were staying here on earth and not going back, that the topic was closed."

Prowl feels mildly at fault, having encouraged Starlight's many questions.

"She got upset," Uplink murmured. "My spark was aching for our city, and when she slammed her data-pad down and yelled that she wanted to know, something broke in me and I told her, 'It's gone; we can't go back!'"

"Oh," Prowl says softly.

"I am sorry, Prowl."

Prowl is at a loss for which words to say.

"I didn't tell her anything specific," Uplink adds. "When she asked how it was gone, I told her that bad bots took it down, and that it made me upset, and I didn't want to talk about it more."

"You're… you're not to be blamed," Prowl says, sighing. "I… I should have taught Starlight to accept not having every last question answered."

"I share in that fault." Uplink shifts her wings. "I have spoiled her a bit."

"I have, too." Prowl steps away from her and paces a little. "I just didn't want her to feel the lack of… everything she doesn't have. I think of my sparkling-hood and everything I had in our city, and she…" He falters.

"She has bots who love her and look after her, but she doesn't have other sparklings to play with or the Crystal Gardens or everything our city had that filled our sparks with joy."

"She's the sole sparkling on a military base on a mud planet," Prowl says with some frustration.

"We have Sunstreaker's art gallery, the pub, the beach, the rec rooms and our parties, and we have the Praxian clubhouse. Those count more than you might think. And you and Praxus both are excellent guardians to Starlight, for she knows that she is loved, and you've brought her up to be respectful and obedient without being afraid or cowed, and she has a good sense of honor and honesty. And she's not a 'pretentious bane,'" she adds, coaxing a smile from Prowl.

Prowl halfway smiles. "Now you sound like Auri, finding the good things in a situation." He comes to stand before her. "And you are right."

She tilts her helm in acknowledgement.

Another half-smile touches Prowl's expression. "Here I came to fault you, and I end up faulting myself and you end up encouraging me." He meets Uplink's optics and is reassured by her smile. "Thank you," he says.

"You are welcome," she answers.

He cycles air through his system and looks at the door.

"Any more words?" Uplink asks.

"No," Prowl answers. "Though… I will say, I am glad to have you among us."

"I'm glad as well," Uplink says as she heads toward the door. Once back in the main room, she bids him farewell, and Auri rejoins him, slipping her hand into his.

The two wingers exit med-bay and start for Prowl's office.

They walk a block and a half, and Auri is still wondering what Prowl and Uplink had to say, but she doesn't ask a thing. She knows Prowl will tell her if it's something she may know. She almost asks, but she doesn't. She trusts him.

"Are you very curious?" Prowl asks presently, having watched Auri's wings out of the corner of one optic.

She glances up at him, sees his optics twinkling. "Prowl!" She pretends to be mad. "You bad mech…" she says, shaking her helm, but his chuckle always makes her smile.

"It was too fun watching your wings," he explains.

"You tell me now, or… I'll think of something."

"Bribes are nicer than threats, you know," he banters.

She smiles up at him. "Okay. Tell me, and I'll kiss you when we get to the office."

So he tells her about what Uplink said about dispensing with tradition, which makes Auri happy. Then, with less joy, he tells her about the subject he brought to Uplink.

"I thought that might be what you wanted to talk to her about," Auri says softly once he's finished. "I could tell you were pretty upset this morning when Starlight said she learned about… that."

"I know we can't keep her from knowing about the war forever, but… I wish…" He trails off because there are so many things he wishes.

Auri rubs her thumb on his hand gently. "I know," she says softly. "I wish she was growing up in a better time, one without war and threats and missing cities." She shifts her wings. "She has it a lot better than I did, though. And even though she went through some extremely hard times with Praxus, she was so very young that she doesn't remember it now. I… I'm always going to remember the bombs and the hunger pains and the fear and… being so alone. Starlight is going to grow up with you and Praxus and me and Uplink, and…" Her wings tremble a little, as does her voice.

Prowl stops and hugs her.

"She's so lucky, even if she's been unfortunate," Auri says with her face hidden against Prowl's armor.

"She is," Prowl says.

Auri sniffles and then smiles up at him. "And I'm lucky, too. I got here eventually."

"Yes," Prowl says softly. He caresses her back, and then they slip out of the hug and resume walking.

They reach Prowl's office not long after that, and Auri darts in ahead of Prowl without turning on the lights.

He halts, his wings growing still. "Is there a surprise in there?" he calls warily.

"I don't think so," she calls back. "Though there are a lot of data-pads on your desk…"

He tilts his wings with doubt and stands in the doorway to turn on the lights.

Auri's perched cutely on the edge of his desk with stacks of data-pads behind her, but what draws Prowl's optics is the clear plastic bag of confetti sitting on the floor. Then he notices the banner on the wall. It reads "Welcome Back to Work Full Time!" and he knows the artist. Praxus.

He looks back at the bag of confetti warily, expecting some sort of booby trap, but Auri hops off his desk to investigate it.

"There's a note from Praxus on it," she says. Then she reads, "Dear Prowl and Darling Auri, Sideswipe said to throw this confetti in your office when Ultra Magnus let me in to put up my banner, but I knew you wouldn't like that, so I left it in the bag when I threw it. I also didn't do any pranks. Love you both! Have a good day! P.S. I think it would be funny to throw the confetti all over Sideswipe's room instead."

"Oh…" Prowl says.

"It seems safe," Auri tells him, so he ventures into his office, his wings shifting as he tests the area for any anomalies.

"I think it is…" he says tentatively, looking around slowly.

"BOO!" Auri shouts at him, and he shies away from her, wings flicking, but then in the next second, he lunges back toward her with a "RAH!"

"Yee-!" she squeaks, jumping back, startled. Then he grabs her arm to keep her from falling as she trips over the bag of confetti, and the plastic bag catches on one of her pedes and rips.

Confetti scatters on the floor as Auri finds her footing with one pede in the torn bag.

"Oops…" Auri says with suppressed giggles. Steadied by both Prowl's hands now, she looks at the floor and then at his face.

"What have you done?" he says, pretending to be full of disapproval.

"You're the one who startled me into tripping on the bag," she says, optics twinkling up at him.

"You startled me first," he answers, keeping a steadying hand on her arm as she steps out of the confetti.

She shakes a pede, and confetti sprinkles onto the floor. "Well… um… guilty as charged, I guess." She smiles up at him. "What's the punishment?"

"Not so fast," he chuckles softly. "I'm sure I could be persuaded to drop the charges."

Auri moves a few steps toward his desk. "Are you saying you'd accept a bribe?" she asks, pretending to be amazed.

"Possibly…" He follows.

She widens her optics at him as she continues to make her way toward his desk. "Isn't that unscrupulous?"

"Also possibly," he answers with a smile. She seats herself on his desk, and he stands before her.

"So… the bad cop wants a good kiss?"

He nods, unable to quite find a verbal answer to that.

"Get your face closer, then," she says, beckoning with a finger. He complies, and she kisses him on the jaw and then the cheek. He smiles at her, and she caresses his lips with her thumb, her fingers and hand cradling his chin and jaw. He kisses her thumb and palm. "I'm so glad we don't have to wait too long," she murmurs, forgetting their game as she pulls him closer, moving her knees apart and capturing Prowl's legs gently with her own, drawing him up with her pedes.

He purrs an agreement, but she can tell he's a little startled at where she's put him. A little startled but still pleased. His hands are gentle on her back, and his optics are warm and loving. His cooling system runs a soft gust of air through him.

They cuddle a little bit there, leaning against each other.

Auri tilts her helm in curiosity as a thought comes to her. "When we're bonded…" she starts and then pauses.

"Yes…?" he prompts gently.

"Will… do you think you'll be interesting in… doing it …here?"

A smile touches Prowl's lips as his optics twinkle. He kisses her helm. "I certainly think so. This is one of the main places where we grew to know and love each other; committing the physical act of love here wouldn't be unsuitable."

She cuddles some more.

"We'd lock the doors and double check them, of course," Prowl says. "And pause the security camera's functions."

"Eew, yeah."

"Then… whatever we please, we may do. We can take the lunch hour…" He smiles and looks at her, and she feels her whole system grow warm. "I'll introduce you to the pleasure of having sweet energon licked from y-"

The phone rings, and they both jump, Auri's knees reflexively jerking Prowl even closer. Both halfway laughing, they meet each other's others.

"-your doorwings," Prowl finishes his sentence doggedly. "We'll _have_ to remember to silence the phone," he adds drily.

Auri composes herself and reaches back and picks up the phone before it can ring a third time.

"Prowl's office, Auri speaking. How may I be of service?" she says, having not craned around to check the caller ID.

"Good morning, Auri," Optimus Prime's voices says. "How are you doing?"

Prowl's optics twinkle as Auri's face flames with a blush.

"I'm doing well, sir," she answers, nudging Prowl from his place. Having him warm between her legs while talking with Optimus on the phone just doesn't seem right.

"That is good to hear," the Prime says. "I have something I would like to go over with you and Prowl this morning when you have time. It should only take about half an hour, and it is not a serious or pressing matter."

Auri digitally checks their schedule. "Would in a few minutes work for you?" she asks Optimus while watching Prowl's face and wings.

"It would," Optimus answers.

"Our schedule is free, but let me check with Prowl," she says. Prowl nods; he's gathered that she's talking with Optimus, and he knows their schedule is free, and he trusts her judgment. "Okay. He's fine with it. Do you want us to come over, or are you coming over here?"

"I would have you come over."

"We will be over shortly then, sir."

"Thank you. And tell Prowl it is not something to be apprehensive of."

"Yes, sir."

She hangs up the phone after his farewell and then hops off Prowl's desk. "Duty calls," she says. "Optimus wants to see us for about half an hour, and he said to tell you it's not something to be apprehensive of."

Prowl checks his armor for scuffs, and Auri knows he's apprehensive anyway. He didn't used to be like this, anxious at being summoned. Megatron did that to him.

"I'm sure it will be fine," Auri says, slipping her hand into his as they head for the door. "Maybe he wants to update on our home," she suggests with a smile.

Prowl looks at her, and she sees the worry ebb from his expression. "Actually, that is highly probable."

She beams.

He kisses her lightly at the door. "Thank you for thinking of that, my sweet spark."

"You're welcome, my Prowl."


	4. Chapter 3, Praxan Panics & Other Things

**Chapter 3**

 **Praxians Panic and Other Things**

* * *

While Prowl seems calm as they walk to Optimus's office, Auri senses him grow more tense as they approach the door to the Autobot leader's private working space, and she keeps her hand securely holding his to reassure him.

"Optimus said it wasn't anything to be apprehensive of," Auri reminds her mech gently.

He shifts a wing in silence, and while he had never been very talkative, it makes Auri's spark ache to see him so terribly quiet –almost mute- under stress. He hadn't been like that before Megatron hurt him.

"I know you can't help worrying," she says, "But I can help a little, can't I?"

He nods. "You do help," he murmurs, making an effort for her.

Auri stops and makes him stop and face her. "Remember that you trust Optimus," she says, taking both his hands in hers and caressing them softly with her thumbs. "You even told me this morning that you trust him. So if he says it's nothing to worry about, then you don't need to worry."

He nods his agreement, but his wings tell her he's still tense. Her optics rest on his face, searching for some answer, but she can't think of anything else to tell him, so she kisses his cheek softly.

"What shall I do with you?" she asks.

"You could take me home…" he murmurs, but they both know he would never go. He is not a quitter.

She kisses his hand and leads him gently onward. "Take you home and then what?" she prompts, hoping to distract him somehow.

"…and kiss me," he says.

Her optics twinkle. "How about a compromise? After this, I'll take you back to your office and kiss you."

They stop at Optimus's door.

"There are a bunch of reports to read," she says. "But, I think I could fit a kiss between each report. -to keep track of my reading progress, you know."

Prowl shifts a wing. "That would hardly be an even way of tracking… some of the reports are long while others are short."

"I think we can work something out," she says. She gives him another kiss. "But we have to talk to Optimus first."

Prowl shifts a wing and puts his hand against the door. He's about to open it, but he freezes as he realizes that he almost forgot to knock. Auri suppresses a giggle as his optics widen in mild alarm at what she considers a rather small thing; Optimus wouldn't be bothered if they didn't knock, but Prowl would never open a door without knocking.

He shakes his helm slightly at her and knocks on the door.

"Come in," Optimus calls a second later, and Prowl nudges to door open.

Elita is standing by the Prime's desk looking as poised and cool as ever, and Auri smiles at she meets the femme commander's optics. She had idolized the tall femme at first, but that had since grown to a deep respect as well as a good friendship.

Prowl's wings shift, and Auri slips her hand back into his to reassure him as Optimus says "Good morning" to them.

"Good morning, sir," Auri answers while Prowl dips his helm.

"Lock the door, please," Optimus says with a hint of a smile. "We have secrets to discuss."

"Are they about our house?" Auri asks eagerly as Prowl steps back and locks and checks door.

"They are indeed," Optimus says.

"See?" she says to Prowl with a happy smile. "I was right!"

Prowl halfway smiles back at her, but Elita has raised an optic ridge.

"Be careful with those words, Auri," the older femme says with tinge of surprised concern. "Exulting over being right isn't known for causing good feelings between two bots."

"Oh! No, ma'am, I wasn't exulting over my Prowl-" Auri hugs her formally stiff mech quickly to reinforce her care for him. "He agreed with me on my guess that we'd be talking about our home, and I was being happy for both of us. –if that makes sense."

Elita's optics rest on Prowl for a moment, and then she nods. "I understand now."

"I could never be too sassy to _Commander_ Prowl, anyway," Auri adds with a little dip of her wings and an adoring smile at her mech. Then they gather around Optimus's desk.

"Well, your home is almost complete," the Prime says, a data-pad in his hands. "We just have a few details we need to work out."

Prowl nods in his helm in acknowledgement while Auri's wings flick in excitement.

Prime goes on, "We will need to move your current furniture into the new dwelling, but I want the transition to be as least disruptive as possible for all four of you. Therefore, I need to know if you two want to move into the new dwelling after the bond ceremony and then have Praxus and Starlight join you after the sweet days. Or if it would work better for Prowl to move in with Praxus and Starlight upon completion of the house, and then have Auri join the household after the bond ceremony. Or if there is a third option you are interested in."

Auri looks to Prowl, trying to read his careful face. "I like the sound of the first option," she says to him after a few moments, "But the second one seems like it would be less disruptive for everybody."

"The second one is better," he murmurs. "But… what appeals to you about the first?"

A self-conscious look steals over Auri's face and warms her cheeks. "Having… er, having the whole house to ourselves…."

"Oh." Prowl's wings shift slightly as he realizes they haven't filled out these details enough. "Both options will have that. We will have Praxus and Starlight go visit the twins or someone; we will certainly have our sweet days alone."

"Ah! Okay!" Auri grins. "In that case, option two should definitely be the choice."

Optimus makes a note on his data-pad. "Good," he says. "Now… I can easily guess that Prowl would not like a large housewarming party, but would a very small one be tolerable?"

"How small?" Auri asks, knowing Prowl wants to know this but doesn't want to ask.

"You four and about nine or ten other bots… your closest friends, of course, not just a random nine or ten."

Auri looks to Prowl, and he gives a small nod of assent, not because he really wants a party, but because he knows Auri and Praxus and Starlight will love one. They like their parties.

Then Optimus wants to know if they want their walls plain or if they want to transfer the holographic wall décor that Sunny and Sides had put up in Prowl's quarters so long ago.

"The walls wouldn't seem right without it," Auri says, meeting Prowl's optics to see what he thinks, and Prowl halfway smiles as he nods in agreement. The twins had slipped the soothing blue gradient wall coloring holograph into Prowl's quarters during a trying time, and he'd left it there ever since because it felt right.

They sort out a few more details, and then Optimus asks Prowl if he would be interested in moving earlier than in two weeks. Prowl's wings keep still, but Auri knows he's somewhat surprised at this question. She slips her hand into his as he considers the potential change of plans.

"It would be good to move earlier," he decides presently.

"So, like tomorrow?" Auri asks, halfway teasing and entirely curious.

"Any day after two days' time would be acceptable," Prowl answers, being sensible.

"We were thinking Monday of next week at the earliest," Elita says with a smile.

After a little inspection and shifting of schedules and discussion of moving items, the bots settle on Tuesday as the moving day, and Optimus wraps up the meeting after they figure out how to work the surprise move around Praxus and bring him and Starlight to the new house.

"Next week!" Auri says excitedly to Prowl once they're out of the Prime's office and on their way back to Prowl's. "It's exciting! So exciting!"

"It is," Prowl agrees, warming up considerably now that he isn't in the presence of other bots. "And Praxus is going to be so surprised," he adds with a soft chuckle.

They walk rather than drive, enjoying the sunlight on their wings and the intimacy of holding hands, and while it takes longer to reach their destination, they don't mind the delay. Praxus would say they don't even notice it because they're paying so much attention to each other.

Once they reach Prowl's office and go in, they share their promised kisses. Then Prowl's optics catch sight of the torn bag of confetti and its slightly spilled contents. Auri follows his look and giggles.

"I forgot about that."

"As did I…" Prowl shifts a wing.

"We'd better clean it up before anything else happens," Auri decides. She gets the broom and dustpan to sweep up the scattered confetti, and Prowl tapes the torn parts of the bag. He holds it open while she dumps the confetti in, and then he knots it loosely. Slightly bent over as Prowl is, Auri can hardly resist giving his after-plating a smack with the broom.

"Hey," he chuckles, straightening. "What were you saying earlier about not being too sassy?"

"I haven't a clue," she giggles, dashing off to return the broom and pan to the closet; she entirely misses Prowl brushing a cloth over his backside to make sure no dust from the broom had left a dusty mark on his armor. She comes back to find him starting toward his desk.

"What shall we do with the bag?" she asks.

"Simply leave it. Sides will certainly be along at some point this morning to-" He breaks off as the mech of topic sticks his helm in the office.

Auri suppresses a grin down to a smile.

"Good morning, Sideswipe," Prowl says with remarkable smoothness.

"Good… morning…" Sides answers, gazing at the confetti bag with a baffled look. Praxus should have taken the bag with him after tossing the confetti, but there it is. "Uh…"

"I was actually just telling Auri that you would probably be by to claim that," Prowl says, a tiny twinkle not quite visible in his optics. Auri reads his wings and keeps a straight face and offers no explanation to the twin.

"Right!" Sides says, still looking a bit confused.

"It's all yours," Prowl says, motioning him blandly toward the bag.

Sides looks suddenly doubtful. He knows Prowl well enough to know that the Enforcer has a mischievous streak in him. Suspicion rises. Suspicion rises easily in light of Prowl's lack of rebuke for the confetti.

Prowl smiles mildly at Auri and moves toward his desk like an innocent mech would. Optics twinkling, Auri goes to her desk as well. Sides is usually the prankster, but Prowl has flipped the tables on him now. The bag, sitting there taped up with all the confetti still in it, does seem a little questionable. Anything could be hidden in the confetti. Auri and Prowl both know this has crossed Sideswipe's clever processor.

Sides folds his arms casually as he takes a step slightly toward the bag. "So, how are things going this morning?" he asks, opting for small talk while he continues to assess the potential situation.

"Fairly well," Prowl answers from his desk. "Things have been quiet. As we like them."

"That's good…"

"And Praxus's banner looks nice, I think," Prowl adds. "It's cheery."

Sideswipes nods, watching Prowl carefully. Prowl isn't known for adding to small talk, and that gives the red twin more reason to suspect that Prowl is returning his prank somehow.

The bag has cleared his scan, though.

"Well, have a good day," Sides says, taking the bag with measured care and nonchalance. "See you around."

"Definitely," Prowl says with a somewhat meaningful tone, and Sides gets out of there quickly.

The door shuts, and Prowl meets Auri's twinkling optics with a chuckle.

OoOoO

I love being in med-bay and doing things here. Sometimes Ratchet gets exasperated at me and says, "Praxus, Praxling, what are you doing?" or "Why do I even let you in here?" But mostly I don't cause him much trouble. I still worry Jolt and First Aid, though. I drugged them both once, and I guess they never forgot about that even though it's been about an earth year since that happened. It was for a good reason, but they weren't happy with me. I also bit Jolt when I was new to the Autobot base, and I think he remembers that when I have breakdowns and panics. I don't blame him, though. He's a good friend when he's not thinking about the bad things I've done, which is most of the time.

He's off duty this morning, though. And I don't know where First Aid is. Maybe still asleep. Ratchet is the only actual doctor around. I'm a pretend one sometimes. It's easier to study stuff when you're a pretend doctor instead of a doctor's student. Ratchet gives me data-pads that can be hard to read, and I pretend like I'm reading it like a doctor doing important researches so I can save somebody's life. But mostly the data-pads are about our muscles and muscle groups and how they work and shift and stuff like that. It makes my helm achy sometimes. And there is some stuff about how to work with patients. But I'm pretty beguiling, so I don't have to worry a whole lot about that.

Uplink doesn't let me beguile her much, though. She mostly raises an optic-ridge at me and questions me, and if I don't have a really good answer, I have to go look it up in a data-pad or ask Ratchet. She's good and nice to me, but I feel like she's always testing me when I'm trying to slip something past her. No one can slip anything past her. Not even Ratchet, and he's tried. I bet even Optimus couldn't slip something past her. Not that he would even try, though. He's too good to do that.

I'm pretty good, mostly.

Ratchet says my moral compass is skewed, but considering that I was raised from a petri dish with some Megatron DNA, given a virus in my processor, and conditioned to kill bots, I think it's pretty remarkable that I have a moral compass at all, even if it is skewed. I could be a lot worse.

A whole lot worse.

Lots and lots.

I'm okay.

I am okay.

I'm not doing anything very important right now, unless someone thinks folding towels is very important. I was studying, but my processor stressed out, and I threw the data-pad at Ratchet's pedes and screamed about all the words. I'm not usually like that. It just happens sometimes. Ratchet helped me calm down, and then he gave me this chore because I'm good at it and I needed something to do that I'm good at. I'm good at helping in med-bay, but not good at reading difficult things. Ratchet often reads the lessons to me, but today he had to work on a thing for a little while too much and left me to read to myself too long. He was sorry when he came back. He didn't know that would happen. I didn't know that would happen either.

It might be one of those rough days for me. I have them sometimes, and we started this morning off with a stupid panic over Auri's evil lip gloss.

Everyone will look after me, though. They always do. I'll be okay.

I finish folding the towels, and then I think about going back to the data-pad that I threw earlier.

I shake my helm.

I'm not ready to read it myself again.

I'll find something else to do. Maybe…

I hear Sideswipe's pede-falls coming up the hallway. I wonder what he's doing in med-bay, and then I remember what I did with his bag of confetti when I put my nicely-made banner in Prowl's office. That makes me smile. I was clever there.

Sides peeks in to see if I'm here.

"Hi, Sides," I say to him, still smiling. "Your timing is bad. I just finished folding all these towels and you could have helped me."

He chuckles. "In that case, I'd say my timing is good," he says.

I snicker back. "Lazy-aft."

He puts his hands palm up innocently. "Hey, I do enough chores at my place without doing chores in med-bay, too."

"Not to mention a bit of community service, too, huh?" I tease, since that happens sometimes.

He rolls his optics, but he's still amused. Then he looks kinda sideways at me. "Speaking of… service… what did you do with that bag of confetti I gave you to decorate Prowl's office with?"

"I threw it in his office," I say simply. "Why?"

He looks a bit skeptical, an optic-ridge going up. "What did you do with the bag itself, though?"

"I threw it in his office," I say just a simply as before.

He looks at me kinda baffled. "So… you threw the confetti _and_ the bag in his office?"

This is fun. I gaze innocently at him. "I threw the confetti _in_ the bag in his office."

He blinks. "You left the confetti in the bag…?"

"Uh-huh!" I say cheerfully. "Just chucked the whole bag in."

"Praxus…" He sighs. "That is _not_ what I meant when I gave you the bag and said to throw in it Prowl's office."

I chuckle. "I know that. I thought it would be funnier this way."

Sides raises an optic-ridge very high. "Um… how?"

I beam, chuckling. "Instead of Prowl walking in and finding a huge mess to get mad about, he walks in and finds just this random bag sitting in the middle of the floor, and he gets all weirded out. Then he sees the note that I wrote and put on the bag, and he laughs because I'm funny. Much better, I think, than him getting mad at both of us."

Sides isn't totally convinced.

"I was doing you a favor," I explain. "And Prowl a favor. And Auri, too. And… me. Basically I just did us all a favor. Did you want Prowl to start the day in his office in a bad mood?"

Sides looks a little annoyed, but then he shifts a shoulder and accepts the fact that I'm right. "Okay," he says. "You have a point."

"Of course I do," I say. "I'm an upcoming genius."

"I wouldn't say that."

"Of course you wouldn't, sweet Sideswipe; you're already a genius," I say, smiling, and Sides chuckles at me gently. Most bots in my place would have said "of course not because you're not an upcoming genius, Sides." But I think it's more fun to tease nicely. Especially when he actually meant I wasn't an upcoming genius.

I know I'm not. I could be, though. Maybe.

Anyway, next I say, "And since you're so brilliant, you should use your cleverness to figure out how to put these towels all away."

His optics twinkle. "Uh, carry them in the basket," he says.

"You should try that hypothesis out," I say. "You know, before subjecting an innocent non-genius to a potentially hazardous situation."

He chuckles. "Hazardous?"

"I might strain a muscle," I say, looking very simple and innocent. "And that wouldn't do. My body is an artwork of time and biology, and it needs to be protected."

"An artwork of time and biology?"

I pause. "A glorious artwork of time and biology," I amend.

He tilts his helm. "Uh… Okay," he says, probably because he can't find a suitable response for that bit of nonsense. "But you have to help."

"Alright," I say, perfectly happy. I quit being silly and start helping stack all the neatly folded towels tidily back into the basket. "Did you really come to med-bay only to ask me about the confetti?" I ask.

He pauses. "Yeah…" he says. "Prowl had it just sitting in the middle of the floor, and it was… weird. And he was acting a little… oddly about it. So I needed to ask you about it."

I think about this. "I'm glad things are quiet enough around here that that sort of thing it what gets priority in your life," I muse aloud after a little bit.

He looks at me like I'm strange. This is a look I've gotten a million times from various bots. But he follows it with lopsided smile. "Hey," he says. "You know what? I'm glad, too." Then he pauses. "Let's hope it stays that way."

OoOoO

Lunchtime rolls around, and Prowl cycles a sigh of relief through his system. They've made it through a significant portion of the work day without any glitches and his helm has only a slight ache.

Auri, leaving her work, comes over to Prowl's side of his desk and sits on it, facing him and taking his hand in hers.

"I think things have gone well so far today," she says, her optics meeting his, studying his face to see how he feels.

He nods with a hint of a smile. "Yes. They have. It is the rest of the day that gives me concern. We are used to working half-days. Not whole days."

Gently, she begins to massage his hand and fingers. He used to type so quickly. "Well… we'll take a long lunch and then pretend we're just working another half-day," she says.

"That might strain my imagination," Prowl says dryly, but Auri can tell from the tilt of his wings that he's fairly content.

"Your imagination is better than you let on, and we both know it," she says with a gentle teasing tone.

"I cannot imagine what you mean," he replies, but his optics twinkle as she laughs.

"My silly Prowl." She bends her helm and kisses his hand.

He halfway smiles and relaxes some more, and contentment fills Auri's spark. She loves being with him, laughing with him, making him smile.

"I love you," he says, his optics resting on her face.

"Oh…?" she says, smiling and giving him a mild inquiring look to tease him. At that, he pulls his hand slowly from hers and places both hands on her waist to draw her carefully off the desk and gently sideways onto his lap. Her spark pulses faster and her cheeks warm shyly as she feels the armor of his thighs and pelvis against the armor of her aft and hip, a new intimacy. He slides one hand from her waist to her back, and his other hand he removes to place against her cheek in a tender caress.

"Very much, I love you," he whispers.

"I think that's good," she whispers back, cuddling against his chest, more armor against armor. "Because I love you, too, very much."

A soft purr of contentment vibrates from his chest, and she kisses his throat, pleased. He snuggles her, and his fingers find little ways to delight her without crossing propriety. She puts a hand on his chest and caresses gently, tracing the edges of its armor and the ridges of its chrome. She thinks of how much they could misbehave and nobody would know, and how sweet it is to not misbehave because of how much respect they have for each other.

A sigh of contentment cycles through her system, and she shuts her optics, feeling blissfully sleepy against the heat of Prowl's frame. How nice, she muses, it will be to sleep beside him every night, to snuggle in his warmth and wake up to his kisses. Or wake him up with kisses.

She feels his shift slightly a second before the door to his office opens, and she puts her helm up to see Praxus come in, Starlight in one arm, a takeout box in the other.

"Special deliv…. Ewwww, really?" Praxus says. "I bring you food, and you're there being mushy!"

Auri smiles as she feels Prowl's frame shake with a chuckle. Both of them know Praxus doesn't actually mind.

"It wasn't too much mushiness, Praxling," Prowl answers. Auri hears the smile in his tone. "All snuggles and a few kisses. You could have come in to worse."

"I suppose so," Praxus says, twitching a wing.

"We bringed noodles!" Starlight announces, not interested in the goings-on of her elders at the moment.

"Noodles!" Prowl echoes, truly pleased.

"S'prise!" Starlight chirps.

"That is a wonderful surprise," Prowl says. Knowing that snuggle time is over and lunchtime is now, Auri climbs off his lap and goes to fetch a mat for their meal.

"Oodles of noodles," Starlight giggles as Praxus sets the box on Prowl's desk. "An mixed up energons. Hey, I need mine wings itched, please!" she yelps, shifting her wings with a sudden little scowl of discomfort.

Praxus seats her on Prowl's desk and begins to rub his knuckles against her wings to ease their itching.

"They're still itchy," she complains, pushing back against Praxus's fingers. "Pwaaaax. Ugh!"

Prowl sends Praxus a sympathetic look. "Come over here," he says to Starlight, but she bursts into tears at his gentle command.

"I not twying to be mean to Pwax," she wails as she crawls toward him. "I jus don't feel good."

"I know," Prowl soothes. "I know that. I called you over here so I could show Praxus how to rub your wings to making the itching stop, not to scold you for being rude to him."

"oh." She sniffles, and her cooling system gives a tiny hitch. She sits up in front of Prowl and rubs her little fists in her optics.

Prowl repositions her facing away from him, and then he shows Praxus how to rub her wings to ease the pre-upgrade itchiness, stroking firmly with his fingertips and running a tiny disruptive current of energy through them.

Starlight sniffles and stops crying, calming down as Prowl's touch brings her relief. She watches as Auri rolls the mat out on the floor, and Praxus takes the box of lunch to the mat, kneeling on the mat to unpack the box's contents.

"Does that feel better?" Prowl asks.

Starlight nods, wiping away the last of her tears. "Thank ya," she murmurs.

"You're welcome," he answers. "I know how uncomfortable wings can get before one's upgrade. Mine made me a bit cranky when I was little. And Bumblebee's wings did the same to him, and Auri's were just as itchy as well. And her back gave her some little aches, too."

Auri smiles over at him, remembering the kindness of his fingers on her back before her final upgrade. It had been feeling so tight and sore and uncomfortable. She'd been stressed out at the time, too, and he'd calmed her with his words while his fingers eased her pain. He is so good with things like that.

"I not get aches in my back," Starlight says with relief. "Jus in my legs."

"That happens sometimes, too," Prowl tells her. "It's different for different bots."

"Where did ya get aches, Pwax?" Starlight asks, curious about her brother's upgrade.

Praxus has his face turned away from Starlight and Prowl at that moment, but Auri sees his optics widen and flicker with sudden pain and fear. He works to keep from biting his lip in stress.

"Oh," he says, shifting his wings nonchalantly, "In my legs, just like you, but also in my back, like Auri. It wasn't fun."

Starlight considers this. "Were ya wings itchy, too?"

"Yeah."

"Are you ready for lunch?" Auri ask her, hoping this will lead her away from the topic that is clearly paining Praxus.

"Yeah!" Starlight bounces.

Prowl brings her over and seats himself on the mat, setting her down between himself and Praxus.

"Noodles, noodles, noodles!" Starlight chirps, reaching hurriedly for the dish that Praxus is starting to pass toward her.

"Patience and manners, Little Star," Prowl reminds her gently, and she puts her palms together and tries to look patient and mannerly.

"There you go," Praxus says.

"Thank ya!" Her little wings flick with delight as she takes the bowl in one hand and the fork in her other. "I loves noodles! Even if… they messy…" she adds as she tries in to get a decent amount on her fork.

"I agree," Auri says with a laugh.

"Yeah. Pwax says you yike noodles even if they get cold!"

Prowl shoots Praxus a sideways glance in rebuke as he and Auri both remember a couple times Prowl distracted her from her noodles.

Starlight gasps in excitement with a sudden idea. "May I have noodles at my party?!"

"Oh, Starlight," Praxus says, wincing a little at having to deny her. "I'm sorry… but noodles take a whole lot of work to make… lots and lots of work. To make noodles for all the bots on base would be too much work."

Starlight lowers her optics to her little bowl of noodles, thinking about this. Then she looks up at her brother. "I could help make'em," she offers.

"It's a grownup job," Praxus says softly. "It's nice of you to offer, though."

"You could have noodles if you had a smaller party," Prowl points out.

Starlight's wings flick, and she looks outraged. "No! I never choose noodles over bots! Pruddle!"

"Oh-! Here, I meant no offence," Prowl says, actually looking a rather abashed. "I apologize."

Starlight looks at him and decides that he's sincere. "It okay…" she says.

Prowl then motions to her bowl. "You'd best attend that, or you'll find out what cold noodles taste like."

"Or Auri might take them," Starlight teases, giggling, starting in with her fork.

"Prowl might take them, too," Auri adds with twinkling optics.

"Anybody might take 'em," Starlight says, pointing at Praxus.

"They won't be safe until they're in your belly," Praxus her, chuckling at the look on her face.

"I'll safe 'em," Starlight says firmly. "Jus stop makin me talk."

Auri muffles a giggle, and Praxus, while amused at the blame, opens his mouth to contend. Prowl, with better judgment, makes a shushing motion at him, though, as Starlight stuffs some of the noodles in her mouth. Once Starlight is fully occupied with her noodles, Prowl asks Praxus how his morning in med-bay was, and the adult bots weave a conversation around their food. Praxus tells about his studies and his stress panic and his talk with Sideswipe, and Auri fills him in on what they did about the confetti, Prowl keeping mostly quiet but adding a little thing here and there.

They are the picture of Praxian contentment at lunch, sharing their mixed energons, exchanging pieces of alloy pretzels and pinches of tin curls, their wings relaxed and communicative, optics glowing softly. It's during times like these that they could almost forget about the war and their struggles and the quiet threat of Decepticons. When they are so at peace with each other, strife seems almost distant, but there are still little reminders, the ache in Auri's leg and the pain Prowl hides behind the love in his optics, and the moments where Praxus gets quiet and looks wistful for a few seconds. Starlight doesn't notice most of this, nor would she understand if she did. She knows some mean bots from a different base hurt Prowl and Auri a while ago when they went exploring off base, but she doesn't know anything beyond that. All she knows is that she loves these three bots the most and they love her and she is happiest with them. And that her brother is silly sometimes, and Prowl doesn't like certain things, and Auri can always be counted on to cheer anybody up.

All four pairs of wings flick in surprise when the phone rings, and Prowl's pin back and down with displeasure.

"No worries," Auri tells him, getting to her pedes as the phone rings a second time.

"Why do you even have a phone on your desk if you never touch it?" Praxus whispers to Prowl as Auri hurries over and picks up said phone.

"Prowl's office, Auri speaking. How may I be of service?" she says. Prowl, his attention on her, doesn't answer Praxus's question. She makes a small motion with her wings as the human caller indentifies himself, and Prowl's wings give an additional twitch of displeasure as he guesses which human it is. After another few seconds, Auri says, "Certainly. Prowl is here at the moment. What do you wish discuss?" she queries as Prowl dutifully gets to his pedes.

As she listens to the answer, one corner of her mouth turns downward, as does one wing. "Prowl does not use phones, as we have said before," she answers firmly yet politely. Prowl stops in front of her and gives the phone a look of disapproval. While most of the humans have accepted him no longer even touching a phone, this human had yet to stop pressing the matter.

"I understand," she says after a moment of listening. "But Prowl does not take phone calls." Her wings flinch at something the human says, and she frowns. "That is a personal matter that we will not discuss with you. We-" She breaks off, interrupted.

Prowl rolls a stylus anxiously in his fingers while Auri listens further to the human on the phone.

"No," she says, her wings shifting with exasperation as a look of annoyance crosses her face. She speaks patiently, however, and keeps a respectful tone. "Sir, each living being is different, and what does not bother one being can greatly disrupt another. Prowl does not use phones for a-"

Auri runs cool air through her system as the human talks some more. She's getting frustrated. Very frustrated. Finally there is a break in the human's berating words and she says, "Your argumentation at this point is wasting the very time you say you don't have time to waste; please move on to the subject of importance."

Another flick of her wings follows, and she grimaces as she looks to Prowl and his downcast optics.

She covers the receiver on the phone.

"Prowl…" she whispers. He meets her optics unhappily. "He won't cooperate."

He writes on the data-pad that lies beside the phone.

Auri reads his words and then nods. "Look, sir," she says. "If you won't cooperate with our communication system, I will have to ask you to speak with someone else. Ultra Magnus, perhaps. I can transfer the call for-" Her wings stiffen as the caller interrupts her again with many more harsh words. She listens and lowers her optics. Then, presently, she looks at Prowl again.

"Prowl," she whispers, her hand covering the receiver again. "Can you try-?"

He looks at her, his optics widening in shock, his whole frame tensing up. "No-" he hisses. A trembling starts in his wings.

"Sir," Auri says into the phone, "It's not-"

Her wings flick at what the human says. And flick again.

Prowl writes, " _Transfer the call_."

Auri whispers desperately, "Please, Prowl, can't you try just for-"

He puts his hand against her cheek so she can feel how badly it's trembling and how much negative energy is tearing through his system as is threatens to crush him in a panic attack. She freezes at his pain.

"Your call is being transferred," she says quietly. She ignores the human's words and presses a button and then several others. She listens for a ring, and then she puts the phone back in its place.

Prowl takes his hand from her face, and she softly rubs her cheek to diffuse the painful energy.

"I'm sorry, Prowl," she says softly, tears welling up in her optics. "I shouldn't have… even thought about asking you."

Prowl clasps his shaking hands together, one thumb rubbing at the other in anxiety. "I do not blame you," he murmurs, slightly choked. "And you did not think about it; that is you why you asked."

A little sob breaks from Auri's vocs.

Prowl puts his arms around her and cradles her gently, taking care to direct the negative energy away from her.

"He was getting so mean," she whispers. "And threatening…"

"I am sorry," Prowl murmurs. "I should not have permitted that man to continue working with us after he proved argumentative about our system. I should not have made you have to put up with him. It is my fault. He stressed you out to the point you could not-"

The phone rings again, and Auri looks at it, but Prowl jerks the cord from its port, and it doesn't ring again.

"That was Elita, though," Auri says slowly.

Prowl looks at the phone.

"Oh…" he says, looking mildly confused at himself.

Auri halfway smiles at his rueful look.

"Logic and panic attacks are not a good… combination…" he murmurs, looking at the cord in his hand.

Gently, Auri takes the cord, checks the little plugin piece and then sticks it back into the phone.

"Did I break it…?" Prowl asks, clearly abashed.

"I don't think so," Auri answers, picking up the handset. "There's a dial tone at least." She dials Elita's number, and Prowl stands very still to keep from pacing anxiously. "Hi, Elita," she says presently. She listens and then says, "I know. There… uh, was an issue that happened. Anyway, what were you calling about?"

She writes on the data-pad as she listens to Elita, and Prowl reads silently. Elita just has a few questions she needs answered. Auri writes them down, and Prowl writes the answers, and Auri relays them back to Elita. It's the system they developed once they discovered that Prowl's deep dislike of phone calls had morphed into a full phobia through some part of Megatron's torture.

Once Elita's questions are all answered and the call is over with, Auri puts the phone back and leads Prowl away from his desk and back to their picnic. He sits on the blanket and hugs his knees to his chest and hides his face. Auri rubs his back softly, and Starlight crawls over to pat his leg sympathetically. Praxus, too, offers comfort by way of scooting over and putting a hand on Prowl's helm.

"Why ya upsetted Prowl wi th phone, Auri?" Starlight asks in a sad little voice.

Auri sniffles. "The human was being very cranky and mean," she answers softly. "He stressed me out, and part of me forgot… forgot that even if Prowl wanted to, it would be extremely difficult for him to handle a phone call."

Starlight frowns. "That not a nice huenam."

"No," Auri sighs. "He's not. But we need help from him on a project we're working on."

Starlight makes a confused face. "But… they… some couple billion huenams on this pwanet. Ya can't find nobody cept that mean one who can th thing? Out of a couple billion?"

"Eight billion, actually," Praxus says.

Starlight throws her hands up. "That a lot! An ya can't find nobody nice who can do th thing?"

Prowl lifts his helm slightly and looks at Starlight.

"Can't ya?" she asks earnestly.

"I… we… we simply settled with certain ones a while ago…" he says slowly, his processor starting to work out the possibilities that Starlight has opened up with her simple, uncomplicated thinking. "But I'm sure there are other options…" He looks to Auri. "We'd have to look into them and… more paperwork… and stuff, but…" He starts to halfway smile. He turns back to Starlight and scoops her up to hug. "Thank you!"

"I helped?" Starlight asks with delight.

"You helped immensely."

"Wait, you can just dump certain humans and find new ones to work with?" Praxus asks, amazed.

Prowl smiles. "While I would advise loyalty and commitment, certain people should not be tolerated. And Starlight is right. There are billions of people out there. And we are powerful enough financially that we don't have to settle with just anyone as we did when we first came to earth."

"We don't have t' take that slag!" Starlight cheers happily, putting a triumphant fist in the air.

The adults look at her.

"Starlight…" Praxus starts. "We don't use certain words,"

"Oh…!" Starlight says. "But Sunny…" She breaks off and dips her wings respectfully. "I mean, yes, Praxus."

Prowl rubs her helm gently.

"Can I tran'form into a truck when I up-gwade?" she asks.

"Well, that's changing the subject," Praxus says, rather startled. Usually he is the one abruptly changing topics when nobody is expecting it.

"My system wants t' tran'form, an I wanna be a truck yike Ultra Magnus. Can I?"

"Your system wants to transform?" Prowl asks gently, looking at her, thinking about the signs of an imminent upgrade.

She nods. "Can I tran'form into a truck?"

"You would be a very little truck, but I think we should be able to help you make a code for that," he answers.

"Yay!" she squeals, optics lighting up with delight. "Like a very little Ultra Magnus!" She's squirming so much that Prowl sets her gently on the mat.

"Like Magnus or Optimus?" Praxus asks curiously as she dashes around excitedly.

"Magnus!" she answers. "Cause he cool! An when he gets a stop sign, his engine goes 'ruh-ruh-ruhhh-ruhhh-ruhhhhh'!" she says, imitating the sound of engine braking as she slows down. "An when he scolds bots, they really haveta listen t' him. Optimus-" She loses her balance and plops down on her rump, but she's too excited to be annoyed by her limitations. "Optimus jus _looks_ at bots when they bad," she finishes.

Prowl halfway smiles inwardly, and Auri reflects that anyone on the base would rather get scolded _twice_ by Ultra Magnus than get even one look of disappointment from Optimus Prime. Praxus's thoughts run along Auri's, and he holds back a chuckle.

"So you think Magnus is pretty impressive?" he asks.

Starlight nods. "Yeah! An he nice, too."

"I'm sure he'll be honored to share an alt-mode style with you," Prowl says.

"But I will still be a Pwaxian, right?" she asks.

"Absolutely. You will be a Praxian no matter what alt-mode you take."

"Okay." With her questions answered, Starlight gets distracted by a dish of tin curls and sets about eating them.

Praxus watches her for a minute and then shifts his attention to Prowl and Auri. "Are you okay now?" he asks gently, looking for any remaining traces of Prowl's near panic attack.

Prowl slips an arm around Auri, and she cuddles against him.

"I think so," Prowl answers.

"Again, I'm sorry about that," Auri says softly.

He kisses her helm. "I know. It's okay. Like I said, you were stressed out, and we make errors when we're too stressed."

"Such an error, though… I-"

"Auri." Prowl shifts and puts a finger under her chin to make her look at him. "You listen to me, my femme," he says, and she halfway smiles, reflecting that Starlight isn't the only femme in the room impressed by firm words. "I love you. I love you unconditionally. Mistakes and errors on your part will not lessen my love for you. –Deliberate cruelty would, of course, but you would never be deliberately cruel. You are going to make mistakes, and I am going to make mistakes… I shudder to calculate how many mistakes I could make. But I will always love you and never give up on you. You made a mistake, but you didn't mean to, and I do not want you to let an awful five minutes bring a cloud to your day. You… you usually see the best in everybody, and you always try to give your best. I might be nearly incapable of seeing the best in others, but I am able to see the best in you, my spark. Let go what happened and remember that I love you."

Riveted to the deep intensity of his optics and his words, Auri falters at finding a verbal answer though her lips part.

"And now comes the mushy part," Praxus says.

"Oh, Praxus," Auri says, but she kisses Prowl once and then twice. "Yes, sir," she says, caressing his cheek.

* * *

 _Thank you all for your support and encouragement and reviews. It all means a lot to me, and especially during the rough times. I have found a potential new house close to my job (currently 1 hour 10-15 minutes away), but I'm feeling terribly anxious about leaving my darling apartment that I've had for six years now and moving to some house in a strange city, and winter is coming to make the roads bad, and I struggled with some mild depression most of October, among other things, so it's been rough for me. So, thank you again._

 _~Cairi_


	5. Chapter 4, Cozy Evening

Hello! Happy 2019! I'm all moved into my new house but still trying to find stuff in boxes. There are a lot of good things about being in this new place, but I've been feeling pretty down and tired. Moving is hard, you guys. Anyway… this chapter is a bit short, but today seems like the sort of day to post it. January-February is such a bleh time that I can imagine that at least a few of you could use a bit of Transformers fluff, and I know could really use all your wonderful comments and reactions and support.

By the way, I definitely recommend the _Bumblebee_ movie! It's really good on so many levels, and it doesn't have the nasty stuff that the Bay movies had in them.

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

 **Cozy Evening**

Snuggled up against Prowl on the couch in his quarters, Auri is completely happy and relaxed. Prowl's frame is warm and pleasant as she rests her helm on his shoulder, and his arm is around her, his fingers lightly caressing her armor now and then to let her know that he's mindful of her despite the data-pad he is reading.

He's reading aloud, but not really for her. It's for Praxus's benefit. Praxus is a snuggled on the other side of Prowl, and the data-pad is one of his study data-pads, one of the ones that explains biology and sensors and various other workings of the Cybertronian body. Auri listens with her optics halfway closed, listening with contentment to Prowl's voice and deriving enjoyment the tones of his voice and the small inflections of his words. The content of the data-pad is mostly babble to her since they picked up somewhere in the middle, and she has no foundation in the topic, but she could listen to Prowl's voice for hours, the way he pauses and the tones he uses. She loves hearing the smile in his voice. It's happiness for her.

Starlight is fast asleep, a cozy bundle of heat on her lap. Auri's certain the soothing nature of Prowl's voice must have something to do with that because it's hardly close to the tiny winger's bedtime, though they've already had dinner.

It was a good dinner. Simple, but good, and Praxus kept them entertained with his perspectives on the happenings of the day while Prowl kept her smiling with loving looks and little caresses and comments of his own. Starlight had just wanted to eat. Her upgrade would be very, very soon, they could tell.

Touching Starlight's helm softly with reflection, Auri smiles. Arcee and Flareup had invited her to a spur of the moment gathering with a couple of the other femmes that evening, but she'd declined, having these plans already. Arcee had been dubious about how romantic it would be.

"There's no way dinner with Prowl _plus_ _Praxus_ could possibly be very romantic," the older pink femme had said with dry smirk. "Nothing against Praxus, cause he's sweet, but he's too quirky and sassy for me imagine any setting with him in it being anywhere close to dreamy."

Auri had smiled at that. Then she'd tried to explain that Praxus was a lot less quirky and sassy when he was with just her and Prowl and Starlight. He was sweeter and more tender. And anyway, the dinner wasn't for romance. It was for sharing and enjoying their familial bond and their love for each other as family members. And while it was very delightful to enjoy Prowl's love for her, there was something almost equally fulfilling about having not only Prowl's love for her but Praxus's love for her, Praxus's love for Prowl, and Praxus's love for her and Prowl as a couple. Then there was all the love going to and coming from Starlight. And there was Prowl's love for Praxus, too. She adored Prowl's love for Praxus; because the mechling could be a challenge at times, Auri found Prowl's great patience with him one of the most loving things about him.

Reading the study data-pad aloud to Praxus was a loving thing.

Noticing when Praxus was starting to have enough of reading, that was love, too. Praxus himself probably didn't know that he'd reached his limit for words, but Prowl picked up on the tiny cues. The increased wing moment. The increased interruptions for questions and not-so-relevant comments.

"I think we're done reading for now," Prowl says gently.

"What-? Nooo… we're not at the end of the chapter," Praxus objects. "Go to the end of the chapter, Prowl. End of the chapter. No stopping in the middle of the chapter."

Auri peeps up at Prowl.

"Did you notice your tone of voice, Praxling?" Prowl asks, his own tone kind.

"No, I just notice you stopping in the middle of the chapter," Praxus says argumentatively. He pauses, optics lowering and flickering a little as he thinks.

"Are you noticing now?" Prowl asks.

Praxus shifts a wing. "Guess so…" he murmurs. "Guess you're right to stop reading."

Prowl hands him the data-pad, and he slips it into subspace.

"I just wanted to get the whole chapter finished…" Praxus says softly with another sigh.

"It seemed like it was a pretty long chapter, Prax," Auri says. "I think we got a good amount read."

Praxus says a soft "thanks" and reaches across Prowl to touch Auri's hand. She turns her hand and catches his to give a little squeeze.

"Besides, you can only learn so much at one time, and that sounded like some pretty heavy reading," she says to encourage him.

"Yeah…" he says, still sounding somewhat disappointed, but he peeks around Prowl to give her an appreciative smile.

"Auri makes a good point," Prowl tells him. "You'll remember better if you don't try to cram too much new information in at once."

Auri, watching Praxus, sees a little twinkle of mischief his optics as he slips his hand from hers.

"Yeah," Praxus says. "Like I remember which sensors run through here-" He runs a tickling current of energy over Prowl's belly armor. Prowl neither flinches nor smiles.

"That's good that you remember," he says.

Praxus looks mildly annoyed and looks over at Auri to see if she sees how annoying Prowl is for not responding properly. She gives him a sympathetic look.

"Do you remember what sensors run through here?" Prowl asks, tickling Praxus's side.

Praxus squirms instantly and laughs as he imprisons Prowl's fingers in his hand. "That's not fair," he chortles. "Tickling me when you refuse to be tickled." He tries to tickle Prowl's side in revenge, thinking maybe Prowl targeted his side because that was a more sensitive area on Prowl's body, but Prowl's reaction, or lack thereof, was the same. "Aw, Prowl."

"What?" Prowl asks, slipping his fingers to Auri's side. At the slight threat of being tickled, she finds herself smiling.

"Double not fair," Praxus says when he sees Auri's smile and Prowl's hint of a smirk. "It's not fair when you won't be tickled. Prowl."

At Praxus's tone, Prowl runs a soothing energy through his fingers against Praxus's back. "Put your helm down, Praxus," he directs gently. "I'll be fair."

Praxus puts his helm against Prowl's shoulder for a couple moments, but then he shifts away and lies down on the couch, curled up with his wings to the back of the couch and his helm on Prowl's lap. He reaches up for Auri, and she clasps his hand gently, their hands resting on her leg near Starlight.

"Are you stressed about extra things, Prax?" Auri asks.

"It's just been a very Monday sort of Monday," he answers. "And Prowl's been twitchy and semi-cross all day, and that gets to me."

"Ww…" Prowl looks startled and sorry. "I… I realized that I have been on edge most of the day, but I did not realize I was cross with you, Praxus. I apologize."

"I guess you weren't that cross," Praxus says. "It's okay. There were other things, too. Chromia and Ratchet had a big yelling match. They've been trying to get along so well for so many months, I guess they had to let out a few feelings. And of course, that made Uplink mad, so she had words at them, and Chromia yelled back. I'm sure Uplink would have yelled if she had more of a voice."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Auri says softly as Prowl rubs Praxus's neck gently.

"I'll get over it."

"Anything else?" Prowl asks.

Praxus shifts a wing and then shifts onto his back so he's looking up at Prowl and Auri. "Maybe I'm a little worried about the changes that will happen when you two bond."

"We'll still love you, Prax," Auri says. "And spend time with you."

"I… I know. I still worry a little. And I worry about these quarters being too small. Prowl and I talked about it last week, but he's not said anything since then."

"Oh…" says Prowl, looking a little guilty.

"You forgot?" Praxus asks, a little dismayed, seeing the look before Prowl can hide it.

"I forgot to tell you," Prowl says, his cheeks warming, and Auri wonders what he'll say. He absolutely hates lying, and she's never heard him tell a straight out lie. How can he possibly hide their surprise about the new quarters without prevaricating a bit? His wings shift. "I… talked with Prime about modifying these quarters and putting an addition onto them so we'll have more space, and he said he would handle our housing for us."

"Oh!" Relief sweeps over Praxus's face, and he smiles. "That's good, Prowl. I'm glad about that."

"I am, too," Prowl says, his look of relief mirroring Praxus's though it's for a different reason.

"We'll have a nice home, I think," Auri adds, smiling at her Prowl.

"I like the sound of that." Praxus's optics twinkle a little more. "I still think it's not fair that Prowl won't be tickled, though," he says, poking Prowl's belly armor.

Prowl admits half a smile to his face. "My work and career have rather required me to be unresponsive to physical stimuli to a certain degree. It's a long standing habit at this point."

"What does that even mean?" Praxus asks, still poking, searching for a sensitive area.

"It means… When I was an Enforcer back on Cybertron, and I was dealing with a difficult bot, for instance, someone who wanted to get away from me, I had to not flinch at getting knocked on the side and kicked in the leg. If I flinched and let go, that would lead to a getaway and chase, and who knows what else. It would not be good."

"Oh."

"And serving in the war, I had to deal with getting shot at and getting hit with shrapnel. Also not a good situation to flinch in."

"I get the point," Praxus says.

"So, you can stop poking him because it is not going to cause a reaction," Auri says, amused at the fact that Praxus is still poking Prowl.

Praxus meets Auri's optics with a twinkle before grinning up at Prowl. "I don't know. It might not cause a physical reaction, but it might elicit an emotional one if it gets annoying."

"I am very patient, you know," Prowl says, shaking his helm with a slight smile. "Not to mention logical."

Praxus pauses. "I hope you're not entire unresponsive to _all_ physical stimuli," he says, looking mildly troubled.

"Well, no."

"Because if you're going to make sparklings,"

"Oh," Prowl interrupts. "Praxus. You- no- w- I'll- it'll be fine."

"I hope so," Praxus says. "You can't add to the population if your sparkling-maker doesn't-" Prowl's hand clamps over his mouth even as Auri covers her own mouth to keep from giggling at the disconcerted look on Prowl's face. Praxus gently pulls Prowl's hand down from his mouth. "-respond to-"

"N-no," Prowl splutters, putting his hand back over Praxus's mouth. "Hush. Shush."

Praxus looks baffled and pulls Prowl's hand down again. "What? Why? You just said it would be fine, so you don't have to be embarrassed. And Auri's practically your spark-mate already, so it's not like it's inappropriate to discuss-" Prowl's hand covers his mouth again. Praxus thinks for a couple seconds and then pulls Prowl's hand down a third time. "Was it my word choice?"

Prowl opens his mouth but no words come out.

"Prowl, there are worse word choices for-" Praxus finds Prowl's hand over his mouth a fourth time. Praxus thinks again and decides to stop talking for a little while. He rests his hand on top of Prowl's, keeping it secure.

Prowl blows air through his system. He glances sideways at Auri, and she tries to look sober, but that fails. At her suppressed mirth, he can't help but halfway smile.

"Well," he says after a few moments.

"I think tomorrow should be a better day than today was," Auri says, deciding that changing the subject would be helpful.

"We have fewer meetings scheduled, thus I imagine so," Prowl says. He thinks about the small party that will be held at their new quarters, though, and hopes it won't add to his stress levels. Then he thinks back to today. He meets Auri's optics. "I hope you didn't find me cross today as Praxus did…" he says softly.

"I got the idea that you were a little preoccupied with things, but you didn't trouble or offend me," she answers.

Prowl processes this. The move and the new quarters were on his processor a great deal that day, but he hadn't realized to what extent until now. He trusted Prime regarding their quarters, but changes… changes could be hard or at least a little stressful. The energon cupboard will be in a different place. His desk will go somewhere else. Prax will have his own room instead of constantly coming in from the couch and snuggling up to him like a cyber-kitten.

"I guess I was a bit preoccupied," he says. "It's nice we have tomorrow, though. I can try again."

Gently, Praxus moves Prowl's hand from his mouth. "You weren't that bad today," he says, his purple optics caring on Prowl's face.

"Thank you, Praxus."

Praxus puts Prowl's hand back over his mouth.

Prowl taps the mechling's cheek gently with his fingertips and then takes his hand away. "I think I can trust you with your words for now."

Praxus smiles shyly. "You do know I wouldn't talk as much if I liked you less."

This makes Prowl and Auri both smile.

"I know," Prowl says.

"You should still get tickled," Praxus says, giving him a little poke. "Auri, you try."

Auri's optics twinkle. "No… I'm afraid to. If I try, he'll surely tickle back, and I'm pretty susceptible to getting tickled, and Starlight would get woken up."

"I a'ready woken," Starlight murmurs, turning her helm a little.

"Starlight!" Praxus says, surprised. Usually it was readily clear the second Starlight woke up. Here, she'd been awake and hadn't given them a hint of it. "Why didn't you move when you woke up?"

"I was dweamin 'bout tran'formin, an I jus wanted t'keep dweamin bout it," she explains. "So I twied t'not wake up."

"You'll be able to transform soon," Auri says, rubbing Starlight's back.

"I know," Starlight says. "I thought 'bout it all the whole day. It's not hard t'do," she adds with certainty.

Prowl looks at her. "You… do you know how?" he asks.

She nods. "I realized how t'do it this afternoon. I just didn't try because I was busy."

Praxus sits up.

"If you know how, you should be able to do it," Prowl says.

Starlight pops up, sitting up as her wings flick in excitement. "Really?! I can? Like, now?!"

Prowl nods. "Yes. But I think we'd all like a hug first, before you upgrade."

Starlight hugs Auri's middle, and then Auri picks her and to cuddle. "One last tiny sparkling hug," she says.

Starlight giggles and then reaches for Prowl. He snuggles her fondly and then passes her on to Praxus, knowing that she's excited to try out her new ability and not aware of her elders' feelings. Of course they're glad that she is upgrading and growing as a healthy sparkling should, but they will miss her being so tiny.

Praxus snuggles her, his hands tenderly cradling her to his chest as he puts his cheek lightly against one of the tiny wings. He purses his lips, his lower lip pouting a little. He doesn't want so many changes, but Starlight squirms eagerly.

"I gotta tran-form!" she says.

Prowl rubs Praxus's arm gently, his fingers reassuring the younger mech, and Praxus reluctantly hands her back to Prowl.

Prowl eases himself to the floor and sets Starlight on her little pedes, watching with Praxus and Auri as she wanders away from him with a contemplative look on her face.

She pauses. "Does it always work th'first time?" she asks, tilting her helm with curiosity.

"Sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn't," Prowl answers. "It's different for different bots."

Starlight thinks about this and then dashes part way across the room. Then she stops and thinks. "I can't do that yet," she says.

"No," Prowl confirms. "Your system won't let you transform while you're moving quickly. In time, however, you will be able to do that."

"I'll be a police twuck an go down th' road wif my siwens," she says, dashing back to Prowl. "An _then_ I'll tran-form! Whooop! An… wite 'em a ticket."

"That sounds like a plan," Prowl says, his optics twinkling fondly.

Starlight wanders a few steps away, and then she stretches, reaching up and out, and shuts her optics. "There th' code!" she says with triumph. She opens her optics and then transforms down into a little car. "Did it work?! Am I a twuck now?!" she asks with excitement.

Prowl glances up at the two on the couch, his expression full of delight. Praxus is looking conflicted, but Auri is beaming with joy

"You transformed perfectly," Prowl says. "You'll be a truck once we get the truck code for you. Right now you're a wonderful little car."

She shifts her little side mirrors with curiosity, feeling out how it is to be in car mode.

"It different…" she says with awe.

"It is different at first, but we've all gotten used to it," Prowl says, watching as she finds her steering system and turns her tires slightly to the right and then slightly to the left.

"Where my engine…?" she mutters to herself.

"You'll find it," Prowl says, settling back against the couch to watch, his wing brushing against Auri's leg.

"Well, I know where it is, I jus can't…" She bounces on her tires. "… can't fine th' starty code."

Prowl reaches over and gives her a gentle little push on the bumper, sending her forward. She chirps with delight at that, and then she slams on her brakes to avoid the hand that Prowl puts in front of her.

"Pruwol!"

"It's important to know how to stop before you really get started," Prowl says, holding back a chuckle at her admonishing tone.

Parked, she's quiet for a few seconds, and then she says, "Oh, yeah… I could really run into somefing an get hurt if I didn't know how t' stop."

"It is always very important to drive safely, especially when you are little," Prowl says.

"Push me again, please! I fink I might figure out how t'go," Starlight chirps eagerly.

"Um, more about driving safely," Praxus says.

"But I can't even dwive yet, Pwax," she giggles. "I tryna figure out how."

Praxus looks like he wants to argue, but Auri puts her hand in his and smiles at him.

"It will okay, Praxus," Prowl says. "I know you are worried about Starlight, but we will all work to keep her safe and make sure she learns how to drive safely."

"I still goin' nowhere, see…?" Starlight says, bouncing on her tires.

Prowl can't help but smile at her, and then he gives her the push that she asked for, a stronger one than the first one he gave her, and he doesn't put a hand in front of her to make her stop. She goes rolling across the floor with a happy sound, and then –just as she starts to lose momentum- she finds her ignition, and her engine kicks on with a baby rev.

"Yeeeeee!" she squeals with delight as Auri laughs with joy. She takes off across the floor, zipping toward the table and then looping back toward the couch. "I drivin!" she squeals, making a lopsided circle. "Pwaaaax! See me?!"

"I see you," he says, smiling now despite himself.

"Won't I make a fan-tatic police twuck!?"

"You'll make a very fantastic police truck," Praxus says, trying to sound enthusiastic, but he's worried that she's going to run into the table or Prowl or the couch or even the wall. Her steering is a little clumsy and not terribly accurate.

Prowl lets her zip around for a little while, however, and Praxus, watching her closely, is amazed to find that her steering gets better in a matter of minutes.

"Come on back and transform," Prowl directs gently after a few more minutes. "You'll probably get tired pretty soon, and it's harder to transform when you're tired."

Starlight comes zipping obediently back, but she says, "I not even close t' tired; I all 'cited bout drivin!"

"I know," Prowl says with sympathy. "But I also know how things go; tiredness will come suddenly. It's best for you to transform now before there's a higher risk of you getting tired if you keep driving."

"Okay, Pruddle." She turns her wheels slightly where she is parked before the older Praxian. Then she crouches a little on her suspension. She pauses and shifts forward slightly and then backwards. She revs her engine and opens her doors halfway. Then she shuts them and turns off her idling engine. For a solid minute, she sits parked in silence, and Prowl waits for her to process. Her door locks make a tiny click-click sound as she locks and then unlocks them. "I don't fink I know _how_ t'stand up…" she says, sounding a little baffled. "It's not the same as goin' into car form… I… I thought I knew how…"

"Transforming into bipedal mode is a little harder to do at first," Prowl says sympathetically. "Roll a little closer."

Starlight creeps up to his leg, not certain enough of her braking ability to pull forward with assurance.

With very gentle touches, Prowl does a light scan of her system.

"Is there a mawcompton?" she asks.

"No malfunction," Prowl reassures her. "It just a code you're not used to running. Try again. I'll give you a nudge here or there to help you up."

"Okay. Thanks, Pruddle."

"You are welcome," he says with a bit of a smile. She tries again, shifting a little, and Prowl gives her fenders a gentle push and tug. With a chirp of delight, she finds her hands and plants them on the floor to help press herself up. Prowl's fingers start toward her bumper, but then she opens her doors and wags them in vain.

"Wings-!" she grunts, sounding a slightly frustrated, and Prowl gently pulls on her doors as she gets her pedes in form and pushes herself up to stand.

She shifts in her newly reformatted armor and then flops down on Prowl's lap. "That was a _lot_ of work," she comments, amazed, her system gusting from the effort. "An ya do that all th' time?!"

"It becomes much, much easier with practice," Prowl says, rubbing her back.

She makes a little sleepy sound. "I forgot t'check… Am I taller?"

"You are indeed. Just about the height I thought you would be."

She purrs with contentment and doesn't seem to have any more questions for the time being, so Prowl gently picks her up and gets back onto the couch. Ever her brother's sister, she reaches for Praxus as Prowl settles beside him. Prowl gently shifts her onto Praxus's lap, and she snuggles as the dark winger cradles her softly, purple optics wide in awe, a contrast to her blinking drowsy ones. She murmurs "Love you," and then her system sighs as she drops into recharge.

Prowl and Auri are watching, but Prowl studies Praxus's conflicted expression more while Auri marvels silently over Starlight's upgrade.

"I think I want to sleep, too," Praxus says softly and a little unsteadily after a few minutes.

"Some extra rest will be good for you," Prowl answers gently. "It's been a rough day for you."

Praxus nods. He rests his helm against Prowl's for a few moments when Prowl embraces him in a one-armed hug, and then he gets to his pedes, lifting Starlight with an infinite amount of caution.

"Sweet dreams, Praxus," Auri tells him, rising from the couch to give him a hug.

"Good night," he murmurs, slipping away to Prowl's room.

Auri settles back on the couch, cuddling against Prowl.

"Will he be okay, you think?" she asks once Praxus has shut the door.

"I'm certain he will," Prowl answers, caressing her fingers with his. "He's overwhelmed, but he'll get over it as he always does with anything new."

"You should have seen his face when she started zipping around. He was sure she was going to wreck."

A soft chuckle rumbles up from Prowl's vocs at that.

"It's not funny," Auri reproaches. "He was really worried."

"No, I wasn't laughing about him," Prowl says, controlling his bit of a smile. "I was remembering Ironhide when Jazz and I first started driving. Poor mech. I think he scolded us about fourteen times a day out of plain worry that we were going to run into something, but we almost never did. And then when Bee started driving, he ran air through his system and told Streamline that adopting anymore pre-driving sparklets was out of the question because he couldn't take the stress of worrying about them wrecking once they started on their wheels."

Auri smiles, easily picturing her dear guardian doing this. "What did Streamline say?"

"'How many times did you wreck when you were little, Ironhide?'" Prowl answered with a smile and a light lilt in his words as he copied his femme guardian's accent. "'And how bad was it?' To which Ironhide grumbled a little and said, 'hardly ever, but it's different…'" Prowl chuckles at the memory. "How she grinned at him then…! He tried to grumble a bit more, but her smile won him over. I believe then was the first time I wondered why they hadn't made themselves spark-mates…"

"It always does sound like they had a certain chemistry," Auri muses, wishing she could have met this femme.

"Ironhide wouldn't have been available for Chromia, though," Prowl states. "And I wouldn't have Chromia and Ironhide apart."

"Of course not," Auri agrees.

A soft sigh runs through Prowl's system, and he snuggles Auri a little closer. She rests against him, reassuring him with her presence as she senses the wistfulness in his spark. Not sure what to say, or if she should even ask anything, she keeps quiet and folds her hand over his. Prowl dwells in other times for a few minutes, and then he shifts to the present and the future and finds a smile.

"I'm sure we'll worry over our little ones the same way when the time comes," he says.

"Your logical won't preserve you from any of that worry?" Auri asks, teasing just a hint as her optics glow at the prospect of their sparklings.

"Only a small fraction, I think," Prowl answers.

"We'll see," Auri says, smiling with contentment.


	6. Chapter 5, Colors, Tables, and Boxes

**Chapter 5**

 **Colors, Tables, and Boxes**

While Starlight sleeps all tired in her new frame, I lie still, watching and listening to her. Auri and Prowl have muffled voices in the other room, but I mostly just listen to Starlight. The soft sounds that her cooling system makes are different now. They're not hugely differently, but they're different enough that I feel moments of worry when I stop watching her. Her wings shift a little differently, too. Her sleeping facial expressions are still the same, though, so that comforts me, but some part of me feels uneasy, probably the broken part. I reassure my broken side and think comforting thoughts.

I get some of my worries to go away, but then I find a worry that makes sense. One day, she's going to look up into my optics and ask why they are purple instead of blue like everyone else's optics. And maybe she'll ask why her optics aren't purple since she's my sister. She'll have so many questions, and each answered question will cause more questions. Will she still love and trust me after she knows the truth? It's one thing to have a brother who's looked after you all your life after your mutual parents died in some vague way. It's very different thing to have a brother who is a Decepticon experiment unnaturally created and conditioned to be a killing monster with very little sanity who stole you from your home during a rampage.

I'm scared of losing her.

I don't think I can lie to her. Prowl wouldn't lie to me.

I pull my security blanket from subspace and put it on my helm and press it against my face, hiding everything except one purple optic. I have to keep watching over her.

I don't know what I'll do.

My spark will break at least.

Prowl and Auri grow quieter in the other room, and I think about them and put a hand on the bed where Prowl sleeps. Prowl would never lose Starlight. He always has the right words. Starlight exaggerates and says he's bad at explaining things, but that's just because he doesn't always understand what exactly she wants him to explain. When he understands what she wants, he's so good at explaining. Even when he ends up explaining something above her, she always listens to him and tries to understand. I think it's because he always listens to her. I try to listen to her, but I fail lots of times.

I'm going to fail so badly.

I try not to cry.

I try not to cry very loudly.

Prowl comes into the room after that.

"Prax, what's wrong?" he asks gently. He climbs onto the bed, makes me sit up. Auri comes to sit beside me.

"I'm scared…" I whisper, putting my helm against Prowl.

Auri moves closer so I am safe between her frame and Prowl's, their arms encircling me. "What's scaring you?" she asks.

Words don't want to form. They're too scary to say out loud. I struggle. Auri holds my hand, and Prowl caresses my helm.

"M-my p-purple op-opt-tics," I whisper after they comfort me for a while.

"Your optics are beautiful, Prax... Why are they scaring you?" Auri asks softly, sounding a bit confused.

"S-Starlight…" I whisper.

Auri looks over her shoulder to where Starlight is. Maybe Prowl will figure it out. He pieces things together all the time.

"You're scared Starlight is going to notice that your optics don't match her optics," Prowl says softly.

I nod. I feel Auri's motion as she looks at Prowl. I feel Prowl's energy shift as he thinks through my problem. I feel less scared. Prowl can solve about any problem I have.

"That is something we will certainly have to address in the future," Prowl says after some thinking. "But we'll handle it together, Praxus. Let's talk with Ratchet and Uplink about it this week. We can't control when or how she'll ask about the difference, but we can prepare how to best answer her questions and explain things."

I'm not sure how we can do that, but I believe Prowl and trust Prowl.

"Okay." I think about asking how, but my helm hurts me, so I stay quiet. I stay quiet and just feel. Prowl is warm, and Auri is warm, but in different ways, and their energies are different, but both are good to me. I like how Auri's thumb brushes softly on my hand that she holds. I like the smell of Prowl and his armor polish. I like how closely together their sparks pulse.

"Are you still feeling scared?" Auri asks, and I blink my optics open.

"No," I murmur. I'm just sleepy now. They're a lullaby, their sparks. I try to tell them this, but I don't know if I make any sense, and Prowl says something to Auri as my optics start to close. Auri moves and Prowl moves, and they are putting my helm on a pillow, tucking blankets over me. Auri kisses my helm. Prowl kisses my temple. They are perfect.

OoO

Auri watches Ironhide's hands with a smile as he measures and mixes some spices into a cube of energon to make one of her favorite drinks for breakfast. He does the simple task with a smooth ease that makes it look well-practiced skill. Maybe he shows off a little. His optics twinkle as he hands her the cube.

"Thank you," she says, smiling up at his optics now, her optics twinkling in response.

"Always my pleasure," he answers, sprinkling a little spice into another cube for himself.

Auri swings a pede idly under the table and sips her energon. Her pedes have always dangled under the table in Ironhide and Chromia's quarters, a table made for bots much taller than herself. The table in Prowl's quarters is shorter, yet still a bit tall, but they're going to have a short table in their new quarters. It will be just their size, and only Starlight will have her pedes dangling. The sparklings will, too, when they come. Or maybe they'll have low table with cushions on the floor around it like they have in the Praxian clubhouse. That would be delightful and cozy.

"Making plans or dreaming dreams?" Ironhide asks with a gentle fondness in his expression.

Auri giggles softly and blushes as she realizes that she must have a romantic look on her face over a rather mundane bit of furniture. "Thinking about tables," she confesses, and she loves how understanding his optics are and how he smiles at her.

"That's good a subject." He taps the table lightly with his knuckles as his optics trace over the polished surface not without a few scars.

Auri looks at the table and then at him, wings tilting with interest. "Why?" she asks with respect and curiosity.

A gentle grin nudges at his lips. "Breakfast and dinner," he says. "That's the short answer."

"Tell me the long answer, Ironhide," she prompts with chuckle, knowing that he doesn't actually have to be asked but loves it when he is.

"Here is where you gather with your family in the morning," he says. "Usually," he adds, smiling toward the door to the berthroom where Chromia is still asleep. "You check on your sparklings, big and small, 'did you sleep well?' 'How are you feeling this morning?' 'You look a little grumpy; what can I do to help?' This table is the foundation for your family's day."

Auri studies the table and then looks to Ironhide for more.

"If I'm cross at the table, it will affect you," he says. "You might leave the table feeling hurt or resentful, and that can put a shadow over your entire day. And maybe you'll get worried and stressed out about coming home; 'is he going to be even crosser at dinner? I don't want to go home to that.'" He tilts his energon cube a little. "On the other hand, if I'm loving at the table, you'll leave with a positive feeling, and maybe that will light your whole day, and you won't be worried about dinnertime. Maybe you'll even be looking forward to it; 'I can hardly wait to tell him what happened today. I wonder what new things he has to tell me.'"

"I always look forward to dinners with you," Auri tells him fondly, but she knows that his example has a broader implication.

"I'm glad of that," he says. He reaches across the table so they can touch fingers softly. "Dinner is the other part of why your table is important," he goes on. "Here's where you catch up after the day. You're checking on your family again. 'How was your day?' 'I think someone has a fun story to tell.' 'You look like you had a rough day; do you want to tell me about it?' You fix the dents and scuffs of the day and celebrate the good things. You make your table the haven at the end of the day. Every family and their schedule is different, but that's my basic belief on tables."

Auri nods. "Since Prowl and I work together, we'll see each other more than just when we're at home, and Praxus and Starlight visit us a bit throughout the day, too."

"You'll figure your schedule." He studies her, contemplating. "You're going to be taking on quite a responsibility," he says softly after a little bit.

She meets his optics, wondering.

"I think you'll handle it well," he says. "And I'm proud of you for all you've already done for Praxus and Starlight and Prowl and for how good you are to them."

She looks down shyly but smiles at being praised. "I couldn't imagine not… I love them each so much."

"I know you do."

"And I love you, too."

"I'm a lot less work, though," he teases.

"That's only what _you_ think!" she teases back, making a face as Ironhide takes a sip. He chuckles and chokes a little on his energon then chuckles again.

"I love you, too, my Auri-spark," he says fondly, reaching for a napkin.

"Wipe your mouth," she orders, optics twinkling.

Chuckling, he does so, and then he dips a finger in his energon and quickly swipes Auri's nose with it.

"Oh-!" She's giggling now. "You know, you're not helpful."

"Mechs never are," Chromia grumbles, wandering in looking like she slept the wrong way.

"I object to that statement," Ironhide says, his optics quickly assessing Chromia's mood even as he wipes Auri face. "Come here."

The blue femme makes a muttering sound, but she goes over to Ironhide and lets him draw her onto his lap sideways and snuggle her, putting her shoulder against his chest, her helm against his shoulder.

"What's bothering you?" he asks, tracing his fingers gently across her back in a soothing pattern with gentle pressure.

"Bad dream," she murmurs.

"Those are rough," Ironhide sympathizes. He locates a place on her back and focuses on it, pressing more firmly. "Is there something in particular I can do to make things better?"

Chromia shifts a little. "Nah… You're already doing it," she answers, and her tone conveys that her mood has shifted already, in a more positive direction.

Ironhide looks to Auri and smiles.

"I didn't mean what I said when I came in here," Chromia says after a few moments.

"It's okay," Ironhide answers. "I didn't take it personally."

Chromia chuckles softly. "You do know better than that by now."

"Uh-huh," Ironhide says.

"You can take the next thing I say personally, though."

"And what's that?" he asks.

She shifts so she can meet his optics. "I love you."

"I'm quite happy to take that personally," he answers, and she gives him a kiss before turning back to lean against him again. "I love you, too,"

"And I love you as well, Auri," Chromia says, smiling over at her.

"I love you always," Auri says.

"That's a very long time that I'm perfectly happy with," Chromia comments, taking Ironhide's energon cube. "Though I'm sure I'll be getting much less attention from you before too long," she teases.

Auri looks amused but thoughtful. Her optics flick down to her energon cube and then back to her guardians with a twinkle. "Maybe so, but I'm thinking with me out of your quarters, you'll get more attention from Ironhide."

Ironhide thinks this over, and Chromia chuckles.

Auri sips her energon. "At least, you won't have to try to be sneaky about certain things anyway."

Chromia chokes on her own sip of energon, and Ironhide gives her a tap on the back.

"There is that," Chromia says once she stops coughing. "You and Prowl will be the ones having to be sneaky."

Auri giggles. "We'll have bigger quarters, though, better laid out for a family. I don't think it'll be that hard for us to be alone at home."

"You have noticed that Praxus is Prowl's complete shadow, haven't you?" Chromia queries.

"A shadow that vanishes quickly when the light of romance twinkles in Prowl's optics," Auri quips.

"Mmm… I have no answer to that," Chromia says, but a small smirk shows her amusement.

"They'll get their boundaries and schedules figured out," Ironhide says, gently reclaiming his energon cube. "They'll be all settled in before we realize it."

Chromia smiles but shakes her helm slightly. "I don't think it will be that quick and easy," she says.

"No?" Ironhide asks, and Auri studies her energon cube with the premonition that Chromia is probably right.

"Praxus is almost more attached to Prowl than any sparkling is their parents," Chromia explains. "It's going to be rough on him not having every spare moment at home with Prowl."

Ironhide tilts his helm a little with a slightly skeptical look.

"I'm hardly exaggerating, mech," Chromia says, reading the motion. Ironhide thinks she is; he doesn't voice the thought, but she knows. "You know Praxus sleeps beside Prowl about every night, don't you?"

He didn't. "That's news…" he says slowly, considering the implications. "I guess it is going to be rougher than I thought."

"But not as rough as Chromia thinks," Auri puts in with a soft smile. "Most of the time, Praxus sleeps with Prowl just because Praxus is still worried about Prowl. Once I'm there to look after Prowl and comfort him from his nightmares, I think Praxus will be okay sleeping in his own bed."

"You said 'most of the time'?" Ironhide says.

Auri nods. "Sometimes it's because of his own nightmares or because he needs to feel safe and looked after that Praxus sleeps by Prowl. And I understand that. I mean, I end up climbing into your bed now and then. There's no reason why Prowl and I can't let Praxus come snuggle in with us. He's still very much a sparkling after all, and we'll be letting our own sparklings snuggle in with us in time." She pauses. "We'd better have a large berth," she muses. "Starlight will probably want in, too, if the three of us are together."

"Three adults, one youngling, two sparklings," Chromia tallies. "You're not gonna just fit that all on a regular berth?" she teases.

"We could try," Auri teases back. "But when sparklings three and four come along and the first two upgrade, we will certainly need to upsize our sleeping arrangements."

"You're gonna find time and space to conceive sparklings three and four?" Chromia half-teases.

"Prowl and I have plenty of time and space in the office," Auri quips playfully. Then she pauses. "Though, I don't know if Prowl… hmm… well, we can sneak home during a lunch hour while everyone's out and about."

Chromia chuckles. "Guess you'll find out."

"That's true." Auri smiles. Then she realizes that the day is getting on. "Speaking of the office, I'd better polish up and go."

"Need a hand with your wings?" Chromia offers.

"Yes, thank you!" Auri says, getting down from her stool. She stows the energon cube and goes back to hug Ironhide. "It was a good breakfast," she tells him, meaning more than just the energon. He rests his hand fondly on her helm.

"I'm glad," he says.

Then she scoots to check her armor for scuffs and adds a little polish here and there. She buffs her hand armor while Chromia tends her wings.

"Are you excited to see your new quarters this evening?" Chromia asks.

"Very much so!" Auri answers. "This is such a big week- Starlight upgrading, new quarters, Sunny's art show. And next week –oh!"

"Next week what?"

"It's a secret what's happening next week," Auri says, her cheeks warming up.

"Are you getting engaged?" Chromia asks, halfway teasing.

"Chromia- I- It's a secret!"

"Look at that blush," Chromia comments as she peeks at Auri's face, but she doesn't pry, completely certain that she has guessed the secret. "Don't worry," she reassures Auri, patting her. "Hey, tilt your helm a little so I can make sure that's not a scuff there."

Auri tilts her helm, and Chromia rubs her crest with a cloth.

"Okay. You're good to go."

"Thank you." Auri hugs Chromia. "See you this evening if I don't see you before then."

OoO

Everybody has to stop and talk to Starlight as we go to med-bay. Literally. Everybody. Not counting humans, of course, but some of them have to stop as well. Everybody is excited about her upgrade.

"Oh, wow!" they say. "Look at you! You're so much taller now!" "Are you excited about having a vehicle mode now? I remember how excited I was when I upgraded!" "It feels kind of different being taller, doesn't it?" "Do you know what kind of alt mode you want?" "I got stuck in car mode a few times when I was new to it as well, so don't worry about that. You'll always have someone who can help you."

Starlight thinks it's great having everyone talk to her, but I don't even know some of these bots. I mean, I've seen them and I know what their names are, but who are they? How do they even know Starlight well enough to talk to her?

I wish Prowl were here to ward them off, but he went ahead, so I just have to smile like I'm nice, just enough smile to look friendly while exposing my fangs. I'm not above biting bots if necessary. Starlight is holding my hand for physical stability, and I don't let go for emotional stability.

Eventually, we get to a clear bit of road and nobody bothers us.

Starlight giggles, and her weight pulls against my arm as she turns and looks back over her shoulder.

"That kina like I were famous," she comments with another giggle. "I didn' even know that other mech."

I feel less bothered now.

"I guess everybody is just excited about upgrades," I say.

"I fink so," she agrees. Her weight pulls against my arm again as her legs go unsteady and make her wobble. I keep her up and help her regain her balance. "Legs," she sighs, shifting from pede to pede. "We upgraded, sillies. Act yike it."

"I can still carry you," I say.

She looks up the road and then up at me, and her optics melt my spark like they always do. "I jus' kina wanted t' walk th' whole way my first time upgraded," she says. "We almost there. But you can carry me th nex places we go."

"Okay," I say. "Sounds like a plan. But how do you know we're almost there?"

"Cause I see that building there, an we have dangly lights insteada hex-o-gone signs."

"Hex…? Oh, those ones are octagons, actually. But hexagons are really close to octagons. You're clever to have figured that out."

She giggles. "Yeah. I knew it weren' a twiangle."

"Triangles are pretty distinct."

"An the twiangle signs usually a different color."

"Uh… huh…"

"What color they? I don' know any colors, Pwax, ya know? I jus' paint an' draw an' don' know color I usin."

"Um… I think you'll learn that a little later," I say nonchalantly even though I feel a sudden panicky feeling. We haven't had time to prepare for the talk about colors.

Starlight grins up at me. "Jus' whisper," she says in a conspiratorial tone. "I won' tell anybody that I learned a color yet."

"Um…" My wings twitch a bit with worry. I glance around, but nobody is coming to interrupt this and congratulate Starlight on being taller. I hate to disappoint her. I'm afraid. Then I think of something. She seems to think learning colors at her age is some kind of taboo, so I can use that. "Okay. But just one color," I say.

She beams and dances a little happy dance.

I kneel down, and she puts her little hands on my face, her optics glowing with delight.

"What color the oct-o-mum signs?" she asks.

Her joy makes me smile even thought my spark aches. "Those signs are the color red," I say.

"Red…" she whispers with a grin. "An that one th' colors on th' dangly lights, too, right?"

"It is," I say, standing up.

When we get to med-bay, everybody there is all excited about Starlight's upgrade, too, but at least I know these bots.

Prowl comes toward me. "You're a little behind time-" he starts to observe, and I take him by the arm and drag him away. He looks startled at this treatment, but he goes with me, his optics wide.

"Everybody had to talk to us!" I whisper so Starlight won't hear over everybody's attention. "Bots we didn't even know were stopping to say 'wow, look at you all upgraded'! Don't ever leave me to walk somewhere with a newly upgraded sparkling again, Prowl. It was awful."

Prowl says "oh…" slowly as he processes this.

I flick my wings for emphasis.

"I'm sorry, Prax. I should have thought of that. Was Starlight bothered?" he asks with concern.

"She was greatly amused," I say with a sigh. "I guess it wasn't that awful. I just didn't like it."

"I understand." Prowl rubs my arm.

"Prowl…"

"What is it, mechling?" he asks gently, sensing that another thing is troubling me.

"She asked what color the stop signs are," I say. Then I tell him exactly what happened.

"That was some quick thinking to let her know one color so she wouldn't feel squelched," Prowl says. Good job."

I feel a bit comforted. Only a tiny bit. "But, she'll want to know more," I say.

"Of course she will. It's in her code to want to know." His optics flick toward the other bots. "Let's discuss the issue tomorrow since today is going to busy, and if she wants to know more colors, tell her she'll get to learn them all next week."

My spark hurts. "That's so soon, Prowl."

"It's a very long time for her."

"Say two weeks, please, please?"

He looks at me and my tear-blurry optics. "Two weeks" he says, and he holds me when I hug him. "I think it will fine, Praxus. She loves you very much."

He gives me a cloth so I can dry my tears, and I use it quickly before anyone can see and ask why I was crying. Then I make me cheer up.

We do physical therapy for a bit, and then Prowl and Auri go off to work, and I stay here to help Ratchet and bother Jolt and First Aid. Starlight does her kindergarten with Uplink. Although, kindergarten today involves a bunch of napping, which is okay by me. She'll have less time to ask dangerous questions if she sleeps a lot. All the questions I overhear are pretty safe, though. Mostly she wants to work on shapes and figure out the difference between an octagon and a hexagon.

But I can tell she's still thinking about colors when we head over to Sunny's studio. I'm carrying her, and she whispers "red circle stop" when we come to a traffic light.

"What's the color in the middle?" she asks.

"I already told you one color today, remember?" I say. "Let's work on shapes and numbers instead for now."

She looks at me tolerantly. "Okay," she says cheerfully a moment later, but I can tell she is a bit skeptical about something.

We count things and point out circles and other shapes until we reach the studio, and then Starlight wants to walk. I get the door, and we go in to the wonderful art-filled paint-smelling room.

Sunny looks up from shaking a small paint can and then looks surprised at Starlight.

"Well, hello!" he says, coming over. "Praxus didn't say he was bringing a new tallish little femme with him." He makes an elegant bow. "Enchanted to meet you, and welcome to my art studio and gallery."

"You ridiculous full nonsense, Sunny," Starlight says, flicking her small wings in contempt and crossing her arms. "You know it me, an I always come with Pwaxus on Tuesday."

"Starrrrlight," I say, exasperated. I've been trying forever to get her to be nice to Sunny, and it never happens.

"At least I say words t' him now," she argues, which is valid. She used to completely snub him.

I don't know what to say, and she wanders off with her nose in the air to get her art supplies.

I stand there.

Sunny chuckles. He never seems to mind how Starlight acts toward him. Honestly, he probably deserves worse after how he treated me when I first came here, but he's nice now, and I forgave him ages ago. I just wish Starlight would, too. I could bring her here more if she didn't dislike him.

"No worries, Praxling," Sunny says. "It's good practice for when she'd older and the mechlings start turning their optics at her. They'll go 'heyyy' and she'll know how to just crush'em like that."

I didn't need this thought. I look at him appalled. "Don't talk about mechlings and Starlight…"

"She's gonna grow up one day, Prax. It happens." He shrugs and goes back to his paint.

"Don't tell me that kind of thing," I say, following after him a little upset. I know how bad mechs can be. "Don't give me worries!"

He smirks but tries to hide it by looking at his paint. "Okay."

"I mean it," I say, flicking my wings.

He dabs his paintbrush in the paint a little, thinks a moment, and then looks at me again without his smirk. His optics as serious now. "I know," he says, being sincere actually. "No worries, Praxus." He gives me a smile then. "It'll be a real long time before that even starts to happen. Come on and get started on with your paints."

OoO

"You're extra quiet this morning," Auri notes to Prowl once they're in the privacy of his office. "It there something…?" She trails off as he smiles at her.

He checks that the door is locked and then draws her gently close. "As Praxus says, 'I have lots of thoughts in my helm,'" he says.

"Are there some you want to share with me?" she asks, leaning against him and tilting her face up toward him. "I'll be your fiancé next week, you know," she adds, flirting just a hint.

"Something I look forward to." His optics twinkle softly before sobering again. "Prax told me that Starlight wanted to start learning colors today, so I have been a somewhat preoccupied in sorting out how we're going to explain Praxus to her once she realizes that his optics are different. I believe she loves him enough that she won't be bothered, but there is a chance, and as we've seen with Sunstreaker, our little femme can hold a grudge for a very long time where she sees fit."

Auri nods. Then she tilts her helm musingly. "But she's also a compassionate sparkling… I think if she saw that Praxus was suffering, she would forgive him. Sunny… while he's apologized, Starlight has never seen him grieved over what he did to Praxus or made sorrowful by her treatment."

"That is true…"

"And remember how she was pretty indifferent toward Chromia until Chromia got sick, and then she was all worried about her?"

Prowl smiles at this memory. "I do remember. And I remember how she would like you and dislike you by turns for no apparent reason."

Auri giggles. "I still wonder what was going on in her little processor then. I was always nice to Praxus and her, so she didn't have reason to dislike me the way she did Sunny."

"We could ask her now that she's older. She might not remember, but it's also possible that she would."

"What if she decides that her dislike was a valid dislike, though? I'd be back on her 'nawww' list."

Prowl halfway chuckles at her word choice, but he answers quite seriously. "I'm sure her early dislike was something small and varying that could never outweigh the love she has for you now."

This warms Auri's spark, and she cuddles against him. "I love how you put things."

He takes the opportunity to kiss her softly on the helm. "And I love you."

"We shouldn't get distracted," she says, but the look in her optics tells him that she wouldn't mind if they did.

"I do not see why," he answers as he caresses her back. She gives in and nuzzles his neck. "I've scheduled a meeting for tomorrow with Ratchet and Uplink to discuss how to address…. Mmmm…." He purrs as Auri kisses a sensitive area on his neck. A quiet growl of pleasure vibrates up from his chest, and his fingers tighten slightly against Auri's back.

"To address what?" Auri asks, keeping a little more focus even as she savors the anticipation of completely distracting him with more than just a little kiss on his neck.

"Umm… to address how to explain to Starlight… why Praxus's optics are a different color… and… matters relating to that." He nuzzles her helm. "Since that's our only worry, and it will be taken care of, we are free to get as distracted as we please until 9:00am."

Auri chuckles softly at that. "We have a bit of work to do before then, though…. The dusting and window wiping and printing out papers for the humans and…" She relaxes against him and wonders if the place his fingers have found on her back is the place Ironhide was rubbing Chromia's back earlier that morning. "Did Ironhide ever tell his philosophy on tables…?"

"I don't know that he ever directly told me, but I believe I know it," Prowl answers.

"We talked about it this morning, and it was good."

Prowl nods. "He's a wise mech we're very fortunate to have in our lives." He shifts a slightly. "There's a spiderweb on the window…" he starts, and Auri can't help but giggle at his aggrieved tone. "Laugh at my misery, will you?" he teases gently.

Auri tilts her helm to smile up at him. "I'm happy to comfort you, but that was just funny."

He kisses her and then steps back. "Well, the sunlight is hitting the web and making it very obvious, and it's going to bother me."

"Go tend to it then," Auri says, smiling. He starts away, and she reaches to give him a light push from behind, her hand on the upper region of his after-plating.

He looks back surprised and pleased, and Auri gives him a cheeky smile. He opens but fails to think of anything flirtatious to say.

"You get the spiders and the windows, and I'll get dust?" Auri suggests with a fond twinkle in her optics.

"Agreed," Prowl says with a small formal nod and then heads toward the storage closet, wondering at himself. Auri scampers to catch up with him, and then she makes sure to reach the closet a step before him, putting her hand over the doorknob.

"What's the password?" she asks, shifting her frame a little to block the door more effectively as she smiles in anticipation, eager to see what he'll come up with.

He pauses, thinking, and he purrs with a soft chuckle. "Very funny, trying to trick me. It is not password protected. It is a combination lock," he says, moving up closer to her.

She grins at this improvising. "And the combination is…?" she prompts.

"A kiss here," he says, shifting to kiss her neck softly. "And a touch here," he adds, caressing her cheek. "And… this…" He kisses her opposite cheek. "Then little rub here." He moves closer to slip a hand behind her to softly massage the place on her back that had relaxed her so pleasantly. His other hand caresses her side as he bends his helm to kiss her softly again. Auri can't help but touch him in return, her fingers caressing the sleek armor of his arms up to his shoulders and on to his neck so she can cradle his helm and kiss him in return. She follows him as he sways slightly, moving her pedes after his. He chuckles contentedly and takes one hand from her back to open the unguarded closet door.

"Very clever," Auri says, smiling up at him.

"Do I get a reward…?"

"First pick of the cleaning supplies," she teases.

"That is…" His wings shift. "…fair."

She giggles at his expression of doubtful acceptance and then snuggles him. "I think I can do better than that." She releases him with a nudge to his shoulder. "Turn around."

He hesitates but then complies, and she runs her hands up his back and carefully slips them under his shoulder armor to massage the muscle groups there. She's not done this before, touching him bare under his armor, but she doesn't feel too shy about it. She feels ready to become more intimate with him, ready to start exploring his body. Most of him it still off limits, but she knows his shoulders are a good and safe place to start, and he loosens his shoulder armor to give her more ready access. She works with her fingers, pressing against tight places in his muscles and guiding energy gently through his sensors. His wings shift not so subtly at this pleasure, and she feels him lean involuntarily her hands, pressing back. She likes this, the feel of him and ability to make him happy. A small purr vibrates from his throat and tingles against her fingers.

"You are _very_ good at this," he murmurs, his tone drowsy with contentment.

She smiles at the compliment, answering, "Thank you," as her optics trace down a little to the bases of his wings and his wing connectors. Fascinating, she reflects, how close a perfectly safe zone can be to a no-go area. Rubbing his shoulders is good and feels good, but fondling the bases of his wings… she feels her frame warm with the anticipation of delight, even as she blushes at the thought of crossing propriety. Praxian standards of conduct must be kept; she's always been pretty careful about that.

She feels him chuckle softly.

"Within a few months, sweet spark," he says; she hears the smile in his tone and realizes that he must have sensed either the warmth of her frame or a shift in her energy.

She feels herself blushing even harder now.

"A few months…?" she says as if she doesn't know. She knows, though, and he knows. He savors saying the words, and she loves hearing them. They play this game, and it doesn't grow old.

"A few months until we are bonded, our vows made to each other before our friends, the ceremony performed, our restraints removed… our sparks and bodies united."

Auri slips her hands up his shoulders and then down his arms, guiding them away from temptation. Prowl turns, and his left hand slips into her right hand, fingers clasping and intertwining. He cradles her jaw with his right hand, his thumb caressing. As she leans against him, moving in for a kiss, she realizes that he's rather warm himself, and a new sense of self-consciousness tints her cheeks.

Softly, he kisses her. Then he steps back. "We should get on with our tasks," he says tenderly, his wings shifting as an outward show of self-control. She holds his gaze, admiring the love and fondness in his optics.

"Yes, sir," she answers with a playful smile.

While his smile answers hers, he gives his helm a small shake of his helm in an effort to focus on work. Auri points into the closet, and he looks at the supplies.

"Wh… what were we going to clean?" he asks.

"You were going to clean the windows, specifically the one with a grievous spider web on it. And I was going to dust.

He glances back at the windows, spotting the offending web quickly. Then he nods, remembering now.

They nudge each other gently as they get their respective tools for their chores, but they stay on task and focus on their less delightful responsibilities. Showing love to one's partner is a responsibility, but it's generally an easy one for them. Cleaning, that's less easy. Prowl finds a satisfaction in it, but Auri finds cleaning a bit of a pest. And Earth being comprised of so much dirt and dust doesn't help much.

Once the dusting and window cleaning are done, Auri sweeps, and Prowl turns on the computers at their desks and gets started on some updates. Once the sweeping is done, Auri settles into her chair and starts looking over reports, a stylus in hand ready to mark down questions for whoever wrote the report. She works on that for a while, the office quiet aside for tiny machine noises and the soft patter of Prowl's fingertips on his keyboard.

"When you have a moment," Prowl says presently.

"Yes?" Auri smiles over at him.

"Please print out the 9253-07 document; it's in the Beta-3 folder under 'Section 34.'"

"Right away," she answers, her fingers already swiping to seek out the desired content. "What do the humans want with this?" she asks with curiosity when she sees the fairly unremarkable geological report on a smallish moon in a far-flung galaxy.

Prowl looks blank. "Um… not a clue," he says. "Errr…"

She giggles at his abashed look and shakes her helm. "You should focus on your work, Prowl," she teases, and a blush warms his face.

"I should," he says, lowering his optics to his desk. He realizes he's blushing and reflexively brushes a hand across one of his cheeks, as if that would dispel the betraying heat.

"Silly mech," Auri giggles fondly. She clicks the "Print" button, checks the settings, and then sends the job to be printed, tilting her helm expectantly toward the small machine, listening for it to kick on and start whirring and printing. It does so and spits out the first few pages before jamming.

"Again…" Prowl murmurs, rubbing above his lip.

"Oy, printer," Auri scolds at the device, though she knows that the human-created machine doesn't have the sentience to care. Going over to it, she looks at the tiny digital screen. "Paper jam in Tray 4."

"At least it isn't Tray 3," Prowl says, pretending to be funny.

Auri smirks and shakes her helm at him. "I can handle it," she says as he gets up and starts to come over. He stands by his desk, and she carefully wriggles the tray open. "Oooh…!"

"What?" He comes over.

"More like, 'Sabotage in Tray 4,'" she says, pulling out a twisted piece of cardstock with a ribbon attached to it.

"Hmm…" Prowl fingers the ribbon, which trails down, tucks under the edge of the printer, and then disappears into the cabinet on which the printer sits.

Auri follows the ribbon with her optics and then reaches for the handle on the cabinet door. "Whom do you suspect?" she asks, her fingers hesitating.

Prowl turns the paper over and inspects how the ribbon is looped and tied through a couple holes perfectly cut in the paper. "Mm… the usual… Sideswipe or perhaps Praxus."

"Prax really is starting to get led astray by those twins," Auri states, opening the door. "First Sunny and art, and now Sides and pranks. We'll have to have a talk with them…" She trails off as she sees that the ribbon has been strung through to the next section of the cabinet. "This is probably a trap. Scoot over."

He scoots, and she moves over to the next section of the cabinet, opening its door, finding the continuation of the ribbon. It goes behind a box of paper, so she carefully pulls the box out to reveal another box of paper with the ribbon disappearing under its lid.

"It's not super heavy," she says as she pulls this second box out and sits with it at her knees. "If it's a glitter bomb…"

Prowl's system makes a soft choking sound, and she looks up at him. She's surprised to find him biting back a grin, his optics glowing and sparkling with delight. It's not his usual expression when confronted with a prank or trick. She suspects something now and raises an optic ridge even as she finds herself starting to smile back, his suppressed grin infectious.

"Do you know what this is?" she asks, almost giggling.

He sits down before her, the box between them. "It's not a glitter bomb," he says, his tone underlined with a deep intensity that makes her pause.

She finds her spark pulsing faster. Her optics seek out his, and his expression is calm now but somehow stirring, his optics deep and resolute. She knows beyond a doubt now that neither Sideswipe nor Praxus did this. And the humans probably didn't even want the report that jammed in the printer.

She slips the lid off the paper box and watches a smile of anticipation hint into Prowl's expression. She doesn't want to stop looking at him, but she lowers her optics to the contents of the paper box.

"Oh, Prowl…" she whispers with amazed delight, staring at the beautifully ornate case overlaid with gold and accented with crystals. It's too exquisite to be an ordinary gift. It must be an engagement gift. "Is it-!? A-are you-" She's too excited to figure out what she's trying to ask. Prowl is a solid week ahead of planned if this gift is what she thinks it must be.

Prowl chuckles softly. "It is, and I am," he answers tenderly. "I know it's early, but it has been a long year, and I know you like surprises… so…"

She meets his loving face with a smile and puts her hand behind his helm, drawing him in to kiss. "I love it," she says after the kiss. "This is the best surprise!"

He puts a hand on the cardboard box to steady it as Auri gently lifts the golden case, and then he puts the cardboard box aside.

"This is so beautiful," Auri murmurs, tracing the inlaid crystals with a reverent finger. She can tell it's old, highly valued, perhaps an heirloom. "Where did it come from?"

Prowl falters. Auri looks up at him and finds him looking abashed with his mouth silently but partially open.

"What, sweet Prowl?" she asks, curious to know what's tripped him up.

"I… I… didn't even… think…"

"Think of what?" she prompts with a loving smile when he falters again.

He looks down with shame as his cheeks heat up. "I told you about hundreds of Praxians customs and things, and I… forgot this one."

Optics twinkling, Auri presses her free fingers over her lips to hold back a sympathetic giggle. Her poor mech! Abashed by traditions and customs, again. Praxian tradition and custom were completely missing from Auri's life until Prowl, and he always took his duties so seriously, feeling required to pass on the knowledge of every Praxian thing. Forgetting to enlighten on the custom of so significant a thing as a betrothal… must feel like quite a failing to Prowl.

Auri realizes this in a moment and tucks her mirth away.

"Sweet Prowl," she says, leaning forward to kiss his bowed helm. "What better time to tell me about this custom than now? You know I love learning things as I go."

"I should have told you beforehand…" he says, his voice quiet as he halfway lifts his helm, coaxed by her nuzzles.

"It's okay, Prowl," she encourages, putting her hand to his cheek. He meets her optics.

"I wanted to make this perfect for you… and I overlooked… that," he says softly, still looking ashamed but determined to go on.

Auri sets the box aside and cuddles her mech, giving him a gentle kiss. "I couldn't think of anything more perfect that finding a surprise box and having you tell me something delightful about it. If something involves you, sweet spark, I will be happy with it. I don't need things all fancy or traditions met to the very letter. I just want you, my sweet silly perfectionist."

This elicits a soft rueful chuckle from Prowl's chest, and he shifts a wing as he forgives himself.

"That's better," Auri says, smiling up at him. An answering smile touches his face, and his optics sparkle softly again, comforted by her reassuring acceptance and devotion. He hasn't failed. She kisses him again. "Now tell me about this box," she prompts with a twinkling optics, taking up the box and cuddling against Prowl's side. "And then we can do the custom things, and I can kiss you as much as we like."


	7. Chapter 6, Bespoken

Hello! It's been way longer than I'd meant it to be since I updated, but April was a seriously rough month. I made it through, though, and I kept typing when I could. This really was a fun chapter to write. I hope you all enjoy it! ^-^

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

Prowl softly touches the top of the gold box. "It is called a 'bespeak box,'" he says slowly, trying to sort out what order he should explain things. Name is of first importance, of course; that much is easy, and he uses the Praxian term rather than the Cybertronian Standard translation. Praxian is a far prettier language.

"Bespeak…" Auri echoes the Praxian word with a tone of curiosity.

"Bespeak," Prowl repeats gently yet with certainty, putting the correct high Praxian accent on it. The eloquence of the accent makes Auri smile, and her smile puts Prowl's self-doubts away. "It means to ask for in advance, or reserve for a purpose… or to make a solemn request."

"You are indeed solemn," she says gently, studying his expression with adoration.

"It's not a light thing I'll be asking…" he says, his optics intense and tender as they rest on her face. "To love me… that's impressive in itself, but to… live with me and endure my faults and stay with me forever, and meet my trials by my side and fight my battles with me… I…" he falters, overwhelmed at the magnitude of all these things. How can he ask anyone to do that?

"I can do that," Auri says, caressing his hand. "Enduring your faults means I also get to enjoy your attributes. Meeting your trials means I also share your delights. Fighting in your battles means I also triumph in your victories."

"The good things are easy to bear…" Prowl starts to counter gently.

"And the thoughts and memories of the good things make the hard things less difficult," Auri supplies.

Prowl chuckles softly. "One can never be very pessimistic with you around," he says, admiration and contentment in both his tone and his optics.

Auri grins with delight. Prowl can't help but smile. He thinks of kissing her and his optics rest on her face in contemplation but then he returns their attention dutifully to the box in her hands.

"It's an old box, I think," Auri says, tilting it gently. There are at least a few things inside; she feels and hears them shift.

"It is an old box indeed," Prowl confirms. "Passed down over many generations, usually from mother to son."

"This was your mother's?"

Prowl nods. Softly, he guides her to turn the box over, and his hand trembles. The smooth underside of the box has names carved into it, a lineage recorded in glyph. He knows them by spark, but Auri studies them with reverent curiosity. The newest set of names is " _Prowl and Zephyr._ " Prowl puts his finger by the set of names just above them.

"My father and mother…" he says softly. "My father received the box from his mother, and he presented it to my mother on their bespeak day… She was killed before she could pass it on to me herself, but it was kept for me and given to me when I was older." He moves his finger up to the previous set. "My father's mother and father…" He moves his finger up to the next names. "And my grandfather's mother and father." He smiles as he moves his finger up to the next generation. "He was the second son in the family to find a sparkmate, so his brother passed the box to him. So the names above are his brother and sister-by-vow, and then the names above that are their father and mother."

"I really like this name…" Auri says softly, pointing one out.

Prowl smiles with delight tinged with sadness. "Zephyr and I thought about… naming… a sparkling that name one day."

"We should use it, then," Auri says with certainty, but then she hesitates. "Unless that would grieve you…?"

"No. I think it would be a lovely honor," Prowl answers.

"I also really like this name," Auri adds, pointing to Prowl's own name.

"We are not naming any sparklings after me," Prowl says with a hint of a chuckle.

"It's an earthling custom; don't want to try it since we live here?" Auri teases.

"No," he answers firmly, but the hint of a chuckle stays.

"I don't either," she says, just to be sure he knows she's merely teasing about it.

"I know." He kisses her softly and then guides her to turn the box upright again. He doesn't say anything, and Auri waits, watching his studious expression as he processes. He hesitates presently; then he looks to her.

She reassures him with her smile. "So, you have this box," she prompts. "You've courted your femme, you're ready to ask her to bond with you, so you surprise her with this box… then what?"

"I personally get tripped up by my failings," Prowl says, but in a gentle humorous tone.

"Prowl." Auri shakes her helm softly.

"My femme admires the box for a bit."

Auri grins. "I did that part."

"Then… umm…" His hand trembles, and Auri puts hers over it to still it and secure him. He runs air through his system, a quiet unsteady sound. "Then I speak… ask…"

Auri caresses his hand and fingers. Then she tilts her helm and kisses him softly. "What do you say?"

He twines his fingers gently around hers. "To… to bespeak is to ask for in advance, and now I ask ahead, may I forever walk with you, stand by you, stay with you, hold you secure, and call your spark my own?" The intensity and the passionate undertone in his quiet steady voice as he speaks the words makes Auri's spark pulse faster and sends a shiver of energy through her frame.

"Y-yes, you may," she answers just above a whisper of delight.

"And… will you do the same?"

"I will. Oh, Prowl-! I will…!"

Tenderly, he kisses her.

"Is it official now?" she asks eagerly, snuggling him as he wraps his arms around her and pulls her onto his lap to snuggle optimally.

"I… um, partially."

She giggles at that.

"We're not done with the box," he explains, though he sounds a bit distracted, purring in delight at having Auri snuggled up against him and nuzzling his neck.

"I should see what's in it, yeah?"

"Whenever you please," he answers. Nestled against his chest, Auri shifts a little to make room for the box's lid and then opens it up.

"It looks like a craft project or a game," Auri muses, peering at the contents. There is a stack of identical metal pentagons with ornate edges and smooth middles, and beside them, neatly wrapped, is a length of fine copper cording.

Prowl fingers the pentagons with a bit of a smile. "Well, these ones are somewhat like a craft project and game, both."

"What do we do with them?" Auri asks as Prowl lifts them from the box. "How many are there?"

"There are a dozen," Prowl answers. "They interlock and will form a solid, perfect 3D shape. But before we put them together, we'll write on each one. Over the next few weeks, we will think about characteristics and traits that we value and want to hold securely in our relationship, and we'll inscribe them on these to help us remember them."

"I like that."

Prowl gently returns the pentagons to the box, trading them for the copper cord. "I at least didn't forget to tell you the mythological story of how we're all connected in some way or another by copper thread woven by fates."

"I remember," Auri replies, touching the cord.

"We'll braid these cords to picture the interconnectedness of our lives and sparks going forward, and then we'll wear the braids on our arms until we use them in part of our bond ceremony."

"Are you good at braiding?" Auri asks with curiosity.

Prowl wasn't expecting that question, and his wings flick in surprise. "It's not something I've done often, but I put forth enough effort to make a good braid when I do. And… you…?"

Auri laughs contentedly. "I've done many braids for armor ornaments in my life. This copper cord seems a little more slippery and malleable than what I've used before, though."

"No worries. We have all the time we want today."

"Praxus and Starlight are coming here for lunch, so we might want to have things wrapped up by then."

"If it takes us four hours to make a braid…" Prowl starts contemplatively. He pauses, and Auri giggles. "It shouldn't take that long," he says.

Auri sets the box aside, Prowl still holding the copper cord.

"Is it already in pieces to braid?" Auri asks, looking for the loose ends.

"It is," Prowl answers, helping her by separating out the strands. "There are four strands: Your life, my life, your spark, my spark."

Auri sorts out the strands as Prowl holds the ends. "Is there a special braid?" she asks, smoothing out the strands.

"Any braid that pleases you," Prowl answers. "I cut them long enough for a moderately ornate braid, if you wanted to do something a little fancy. My skill level rests at simple, though."

"On braids alone, I think," Auri giggles.

"I'm bad at many things," Prowl replies with a gentle chuckle softening his words.

"But you're good at kissing."

"That I am," Prowl purrs, a growl of delight rising up from his chest as he cups Auri's face to reinforce his words with actions with a kiss on the cheek. She kisses him back, and her lips stray toward his lips, cautiously.

"Are we official enough…?" she asks, not quite kissing his lips.

"Yes." He kisses softly, introducing her to the energy of his lips on hers. She kisses him in return more fully and then pulls back slightly to make sure she wasn't kissing too much. "Yes, we are," Prowl says deeply, his cooling fans running a long sigh of contentment as they engage mutually in another kiss, firm and sweet.

Several kisses later, Auri tugs the nearly forgotten copper strands. "At this rate, it could take us four hours to make a braid."

Prowl chuckles. "I'm sure Praxus would have things to say if we did."

Auri's optics twinkle. "'Eeeew' being one of them."

"Along with 'mushy faces,'" Prowl adds, snuggling her, not minding the thought at all.

"We should get this done, though," Auri decides. She smoothes out the cords again, and Prowl holds the ends secure for her as she begins to braid, twisting the metallic cord neatly with a decorative knot and loop here and there. After a little bit, Prowl gently takes the strands from her and has her hold the end so he can make part of the braid. She shifts on his lap so he can reach the braid with the arm he'd been using to snuggle her, and her wings nudge up against him. Another soft purr rises from his throat and makes her smile. It's so nice to be this close, she thinks.

Moments later, though, Prowl's purr of contentment is replaced by a huff of mild frustration. His fingers are barely cooperating for him. While physical therapy has enabled him to write and type and grasp and open things, braiding is just a step beyond that. He'd not thought of that challenge.

Cycling air through his system, he starts to undo his uneven bit of braid, but Auri stops him.

"Is it bad symbolism to undo the braid?" she asks.

Prowl shakes his helm with a hint of a smile. "No. It's a reminder that when we mess up, we can always try again."

"Okay," Auri says, reassured.

Prowl starts his section of the braid again, more slowly, painstaking now. "I'm worse at this than I thought…"

"We still have a couple hours," Auri says, bringing a hint of a smile back to Prowl's face. The hint flickers as he continues working on the braid, and he sighs as his fingers start to seize up from the effort combined with the stress that is growing in him. "Stop a minute," Auri directs gently, putting her free hand over his. "I have an idea."

He stops and then watches as Auri takes a random bit of string from subspace and ties it to the end of their braid. Then she ties the other end of the string to the handle on the cabinet door.

"It's unorthodox, I'm sure," she says with a smile at Prowl's look of hesitation. "But I'm not going to sit around and watch you struggle."

"No objections," he answers, yielding his hands to hers as she takes them. Gently, she rubs his hands and fingers and softly massages out the tension that has gathered in them. His wings relax as well, and the light is his optics is soft and warm as he watches her.

Once she has worked the problems from his hands, she moves to settle beside him, and, taking up the braid again, she puts the strands in his hands and smoothes them out. Slowly, Prowl takes a strand and puts it in place, and Auri slips her hand in and straightens the strands under it, teasing out an uneven one. She puts the next strand in place, her fingers caressing Prowl's as she crosses her hand over his.

She looks up at him with a smile as he takes up the next strand.

"I like your way," he says, contentment purring in his words.

"I'm glad. I like it, too."

The braid goes slowly yet smoothly as they work together, Auri's fingers and Prowl's fingers caressing and weaving. They take breaks, for even though the task is easier with Auri helping Prowl's hands, tension still builds up in his fingers from the unusual trick he is asking of them. Every break has kisses and cuddles, and Auri rubs Prowl's fingers to chase away the tension. Toward the end of the braiding, on their last break, she kisses his knuckles, and he caresses her cheek in return before running his fingertips softly down her neck, brushing her throat with a soft energy. She watches his studious expression with widening optics and a growing smile, eager and curious to see how far down he'll go. Mischief twinkles in his optics before he goes too far, and he brings his hand up to tap her softly on the nose with a single finger. She giggles at the surprise.

After another kiss, they resume their work and complete the braid. Prowl pinches the ends of the metallic cord to secure the braid's end, and then he severs the braid close to the middle and hands Auri the longer piece of braid.

"How do we wear them?" she asks, looping the braid carefully around after a quick glance at Prowl's helm.

"Like this," he answers. He secures the braid to her shoulder armor with a few little armor clips and then crosses the braid over itself and wraps it around her bicep armor, making an armband of it and then adding another clip to keep it in place, leaving a length of the ends hanging like tassels. She watches with joy in her optics, with a hint of pride directed at the braid, not arrogant pride, but feeling success and accomplishment. It is a beautifully made braid, and knowing how much work they put into makes it that much more meaningful.

She nudges the clip with her fingertip to make sure it's secure, and then she smiles up at her Prowl.

"Your turn," he says, holding out half a dozen armor clips for her to use. He pauses as he realizes that she has looped his piece of braid into something like a wreath. "Um… no…" he says mildly as she grins and settles it on his helm like a crown. "That's… that's not…"

She giggles softly, her optics twinkling at him.

"Not… not… not how it's worn… No… n-no, Aurion-Blaze."

Her optics widen at her full name, and she takes the wreath off Prowl's helm a bit quickly, seeing the disconcerted look on his face. It wouldn't do to trip the circuits in his processor and cause him to glitch out, but that's exactly what she suspects would have happened if she'd left the wreath in place.

He runs air through his system and watches as she undoes the wreath, his optics still showing a hint of alarm. She peeks up at him, and apology fills her expression.

"I didn't realize doing that would disconcert you so badly," she says softly. "I'm sorry, my Prowl."

"It… it's okay," he murmurs. He finds a bit of a smile for her as his processor recovers. "No kisses for you if you make me glitch out, though," he says as she secures the braid properly on his shoulder with the clips. "Unconscious bots can't kiss."

Auri's optics twinkle up at him. "But you didn't glitch out, and you're not unconscious, so…"

"So I guess you're getting kissed."

"As soon as I finish this," she adds, twining the braid gently. Prowl watches and hands her the last clips to secure the braid. "There," she says and smiles up at him with adoration.

He kisses her. "Now we're completely official," he purrs.

The next few hours pass quickly for them as they snuggle and talk, sometimes teasing, sometimes very serious, always happy with each other. A knock on the door surprises them, but they recognize that it's Praxus's knock, and Auri giggles as she realizes that it must be lunchtime already. Prowl's optics twinkle as he moves to rise, but then a small wince crosses his face.

"We shouldn't have sat on the floor long," he realizes aloud, shifting his leg and trying to find a better way to get up. He hisses a second later. Auri stills him with a hand softly on his arm and shifts onto her knees and gets up on one pede before faltering. One wing of her wings gives a tiny flick.

Starlight knocks on the door now. "Pruddle?" she calls.

"Just a moment," Prowl calls back, as he gently gives Auri a boost and supports her as she rises. Then she takes his hands in hers and helps tug him up. "Thank you," he says softly, tilting his face toward hers.

Starlight taps on the door again. "It bend a couple moments."

Auri giggles softly at Prowl's baffled look.

"How long does she think a moment is?" he wonders aloud, going to the door, Auri following with one hand still holding his.

Upon unlocking the door, he opens it, and Starlight giggles up at them. "Yo s'prise lunch gonna get cold," she announces as she scampers in. She wobbles and corrects herself and smiles when she doesn't fall.

"What if we eat it right this moment?" Prowl asks, smiling after her as Praxus passes by with a carryout box.

"Maybe it stay warm fo two more minicks," Starlight teases, putting a hand on Prowl's desk to steady herself.

Prowl shuts the door, and he and Auri follow Praxus to join Starlight at Prowl's desk.

"Look, Auri! We bringed these coz ya like 'em," Starlight calls happily, motioning as Praxus takes a little dish of tin curls from his carryout box.

"That's lovely of you," Auri answers, nabbing one to nibble while Prowl moves a few data-pads off the top of his desk.

Praxus looks at dark inactive screen on Prowl's desk computer and then gives Prowl a small questioning look.

A smile hints at Prowl's optics. "We were sitting on the floor and talking for a while," he explains.

"Up, please!" Starlight says, reaching toward the desk. Auri lifts her up, and she kicks her little legs up so Auri can set her down in a seated position on the desk. "Thank you! Oh-! This pretty," Starlight chirps, noticing the braid on Auri's shoulder.

Auri blushes and murmurs, "Oh, oh, thank you. I think so too," and look at the braid with soft optics. Praxus, who looked over to see what his sister was talking about, gives Auri a look of strong curiosity. He doesn't know of any reason why she should be so bashful over an ornament; she never has been before. When she notice that he's fairly staring at her, the blush grows, but her optics twinkle, and she can help but smile because Prowl, standing beside Praxus, is smiling at her.

Praxus turns his optics to Prowl to check on the situation, and that's when he notices Prowl's matching braid.

"Shenanigans," he says, leaning in a little to scrutinize the braid. He doesn't know what it is, but he has suspicions.

"Ya got one, too, Prol!" Starlight realizes. "Do ev'ybody get one?"

Prowl chuckles softly at this. "No, sweet Star. These are very special braids. Auri and I wove them together as a symbol because Auri and I are going to be sparkmates."

Starlight looks from Prowl's braid to Auri's and doesn't comment.

"Do you know what that means?" Prowl asks, almost hesitantly.

"Umm…" she wriggles her pedes as she thinks. "Ya gonna belong t' her," she decides after a few moments.

Auri grins at that definition, but Prowl realizes in that second that he doesn't know exactly how to explain being a sparkmate.

Starlight's wings shift. "Wait, naw," she says before Prowl can find any words. "Ya already belong t' her. Oh… ya gonna live with her…?"

"Y-yes," Prowl manages.

Starlight looks disappointed, her little wings drooping. "I don't want ya t'live with Auri," she says softly. "I want ya t'stay with us."

"Oh, Starlight," Auri says, suppressing a fond grin of delight. "Prowl _will_ stay with you and Praxus. He's not leaving; I'm going to come live with the three of you."

The little wings perk up, and Starlight's optics brighten. "All the time?" she asks, excited at the prospect.

"Yes," Prowl says with infinite contentment in his tone. "All the time."

"That be so fun!" Starlight squeaks with delight. "All the whole time! Auri!" She kicks her pedes and waves her hands and scrambles up to throw herself at Auri in an excited hug. "When ya live with us, ya can be mine sister!"

Auri laughs, delighted. "That sounds wonderful."

"Pwax!" Starlight squeals. "Auri gonna live with us!"

"I know," Praxus says with a soft smile. He touches the braid on Prowl's shoulder tenderly and doesn't know what to say, so he hugs Prowl and hides his face.

"Hey, the lunch actually gonna get cold now!" Starlight realizes. "We gotta eat it!" Auri settles her back on the desk.

Praxus goes and retrieves a chair for himself, and Auri perches herself on Prowl's lap once his sits. Praxus looks sideways at this new arrangement and then shifts a wing, knowing that he'll have to get used to this sort of thing. They are rather cute and cuddly like that, he thinks after a minute, but he would never willingly admit that to anyone.

"See, see…!" Starlight says in anticipation as Praxus opens up the box. "S'prise! Noodles! Yo favorite!"

"That's a perfect surprise lunch!" Auri tells her with delight. "Thank you!"

Starlight shrugs. "Mirage jus had'em fo ya. We didn't plan it."

"Well, thank you for delivering it," Auri says, optics twinkling.

"And not eating them on the way," Prowl teases gently. Starlight giggles at that, her little wings flicking up.

The noodles, happily, weren't too cold, despite Starlight's concerns. They were, in fact, nicely warm and still almost hot thanks to the insulated carrier Mirage had packed them in. Starlight pleased herself by eating her portion with considerable skill using chopsticks. Prowl had taught her. She was still trying to teach Praxus, but he wasn't good at it and preferred using a fork. He would spend an hour trying paint something, but he wouldn't spend two minutes to pick up noodles properly with chopsticks, silly Praxus. Auri also wasn't good at chopsticks, but she didn't really try; she just kept tricking Prowl into giving her his bites of noodles off his chopsticks. Silly Auri. And silly Prowl, falling for the trick so many times.

"You're gonna choke if you giggle that much while eating, Star," Praxus says and shakes his helm at Prowl and Auri.

"I jus amoosed," Starlight explains.

Praxus shifts his wings. "Well… just wait until you stop giggling before you eat more noodles. Okay?"

"Okay." She grins at him. She makes sure she isn't giggling, and then she handles her little chopsticks neatly. "Ya gonna try 'em sticks again?" she asks.

Praxus sighs and looks at his noodles and fork. Then he smiles drily at her with fondness softening his expression. "Maybe I'll try them later," he says, and she beams encouragingly at him.

"'Em jus takes practice," she says. "Like ya practice paints. Jus keep practicin' sticks more. Today. An' tomorrow, too," she adds firmly.

"Starlight," Prowl says gently. "If he wants to learn he will try. You can encourage him, but don't push him."

"But he needs t' learn!" Starlight objects, wings flicking in defiance. "How he gonna learn if nobody gets'em t'practice?!"

Praxus's optics widen in dismay at this sudden backtalk; Prowl's optics widen, too, but mostly just because he's surprised at the sudden strongness in her tone. Auri watches surreptitiously, interested in how he'll answer.

"Learning how to use chopsticks is not very important, sweet Star," Prowl answers, in no way dismissive; his tone is his usual serious tone, gentled by his care for the youngling. Starlight purses her lips slightly, and Prowl goes on, explaining, "You and I find it fun to use them, but they are not required. I taught you because you wanted to learn. Praxus doesn't really want to learn how to use them, so we encourage him when he tries, and we let him be in peace when he doesn't."

Starlight looks from Prowl to Praxus and then at some of the noodles.

"It's also not your job to make him learn-"

"I'm his sister!" Starlight exclaims, outraged, tiny wings pinning up.

Prowl's optics flicker in surprise, and his wings give a twitch before he controls them.

"You are his sister, indeed," he answers, keeping his focus on Starlight though he sees Praxus's wings lower. "You're his younger sister, though. You can share information and guide and encourage him and help him every way you can, but it's not your job to boss him and tell him what to do."

Starlight frowns, looking confused. "Why? He my brother."

"Because he is your guardian as well as your brother. You need to be respectful of him as a guardian."

"Oh…" She widens her optics, reconsidering things. Her wings dip respectfully and she giggles softly, a little abashed. "I fo'got… Jus 'cus ya mostly mine guardian. I fo'got Prax was, too."

"That is because he is a very, very good brother."

"Yeah!' Starlight beams up at Praxus, but then her expression turns puzzled. "Why ya putted up ya visor on ya face, Praxus?"

Praxus's lips smile, his optics hidden. "The visor helps me see things better sometimes, so maybe it will help me watch how to use chopsticks," he answers, twiddling a set of the sticks in his fingers.

"Oh!" Starlight says, delighted at the prospect of him trying. "Ya gonna practice?!"

"Yeah… 'm gonna practice a little today."

"An ya good at practicing stuffs," Starlight compliments before sticking almost too many noodles in her mouth. "Mmmpf…"

Auri is very still as she looks at Praxus. She and Prowl both know that's not the reason for the visor. She sees a blush burning his cheeks, visible just below the screening device. His jaw tightens. His wings are already stiff.

"Prax," Prowl starts, but Praxus answers quickly and cheerfully.

"Just watch- I'll give it a good try-" He shifts the chopsticks and then manages just enough dexterity to get a small bite.

"Good job," Prowl says quietly. Starlight's mouth is too full for a word, but she smiles up at her brother happily.

"Thanks," Praxus says with a happy tone.

Auri shifts against Prowl softly and looks up, making optic contact. They need to do something to help Praxus, but they need to do it discretely so Starlight won't realize that he's distressed and ask him why he's upset.

::I think he'll deflect again if I try to get him away,:: Prowl tells Auri quietly over their internal intercoms. ::He already did that once.::

::I noticed. So... we need to get Starlight away instead.::

::Yes. I think-::

"Prol?" Starlight queries, looking worried. Prowl drops off the intercom instantly.

"Yes?" he answers.

She hesitates, her shifting wings communicating some serious thought. "Can I talk with ya in private fo a minute?"

"You certainly can," Prowl answers with equal seriousness, though Auri has to bite back a smile; only a sparkling constantly around Ratchet would have ever asked such a question. "Shall we talk right now?" Prowl asks.

"Umm…" Starlight regards her empty noodle dish. "Yeah… but in private."

"We will do just that." Prowl displaces Auri gently and settles her back in his chair with a light kiss of relief. Then he lifts Starlight from his desk and takes her to the storage room.

"It's jus a minute," Starlight calls back to Praxus and Auri before Prowl closes the door.

Prowl seats her gently on a filing cabinet and sits on a spare stool facing her, optic to optic with her. "What's on your processor?" he asks tenderly as he sees her looking almost distressed.

"I…" She wriggles her pedes. "I worry 'bout Prax…" she says with a little catch in her voice. "I know em virus makes problems in his helm sometimes…" the conflicted expression on her face grows. "An I know I can't make him use chopsticks cuz he my guardian… but…" a tiny whimper enter her voice. "I fink… he don't know th' color names. He won't tell me any, cept one. An' how he gonna learn the color names if I can't teach him what I learn?" she cries.

Prowl's optics flicker. "Oh…" he says faintly to himself.

Starlight rubs her optics. "He jus wants t'paint, but-"

"Oh, oh, Starlight-" Prowl gathers her up and cradles her against his chest. "Little One, it's gonna be okay. He does know the colors' names. He knows them very well."

She sniffles, and her wings give a little hitch. "He does?"

"He does. It's just not quite time for you to learn the colors yet."

"Oh…!" she says, and Prowl smiles softly as he feels her little frame relax with relief against him. "Okay," she says, soundly quite content now.

Prowl rubs her back. "If he did not know his colors, and he wanted to learn them, if would be fine for you to teach them to him," he adds softly. "Anything you know -or learn- you can share with him. You just can't be bossy about it and tell him what to learn."

"Oh..."

"Did I explain that better than I did earlier?"

"I fink so," Starlight says in a way that makes Prowl smile.

"Well, if you feel worried about it later, let me know, and I'll try again. Okay?"

"Okay." She tilts her helm and smiles up at him.

He plants a kiss on her helm and takes a small cloth from subspace to dry the few little tears that had trickled down her cheeks. A sigh of relief runs through his system; while Starlight might cry or get upset over something without much warning, the negative emotions are usually cleared up and away almost just as quickly.

"Is there anything else you want to about?" Prowl asks; he truly cares about listening to the sparkling's concerns, but he also wants to buy time for Auri and Praxus.

"That everything right now," Starlight answers contentedly. "I ready for dessert."

Prowl chuckles softly. "Are we having dessert with lunch?"

"That a s'prise," Starlight giggles.

"Oh…" Prowl's wings give a small shift.

"Let's go," Starlight says eagerly, and Prowl cannot think of any excuses to delay. Auri should have gotten Praxus away from the office by now, anyway; she's good at handling him. He gets to his pedes and opens the door.

Then he freezes. Praxus and Auri both are still at his desk, and Praxus has his helm down on the desk, his face buried in his arms as he sobs.

"Pwaaaaax!" Starlight wails in distress. "What wrong?!" She starts to squirm to be put down so she can run to him, but then she realizes that Prowl will get her to Praxus faster as he quickens his stride. She pushes away from Prowl as soon as he sets her pedes on his desk, and then she puts her hands on Praxus's arms and helm, rubbing his armor to let him know that she's there. "What wrong, brother? What wrong?"

"I'm not your brother!" he sobs, and Auri gasps in dismay.

"Yes, ya are," Starlight says, looking at Praxus in amazement at such a preposterous statement.

"I'm not! I not- not even little bit-!"

"Praxus," Auri starts to intercede, but Praxus cuts her off with a howl.

"Nooooo! No!" Praxus puts his visor away to press his hands against his optics.

Starlight looks mildly disconcerted, little wings twitching. "Get yo curey blankie, Prax," she says. "Where yo blankie?"

Praxus sobs something unintelligible and doesn't retrieve his security blanket, so Prowl gently accesses his subspace and gets the blanket for him, putting it across his shoulders, neck, and helm.

"Ya better now," Starlight says, patting his helm through the blanket.

"N-n-no-oh," Praxus whimpers. "N-Never! Never better- n-not your brother."

"Prax-" Her little wings twitch with upset. Then she sighs and relaxes as she realizes something. "Oh, Prax, it okay. Ya still be mine brother even if I got Auri as mine sister. I not trading ya. I always keep ya as mine brother even if I got more brothers or sisters."

"Nooo!" Praxus bawls.

"Starlight has a good point," Prowl starts, but Praxus cuts him off with a half-scream.

"Not true!"

"Is true!" Starlight hollers to be heard.

"You don't know! You not know!" Praxus shrieks, flinching away from Starlight and covering his helm with his arms.

"Prax-" Prowl starts,

"NOT KNOW!" Praxus screams, sobbing. "NO!"

"YA GETTING UPSETTED OVER PRETEND FINGS!" Starlight yells over his sobs. "STOP IT!"

"Star," Prowl starts, and Auri reaches for the sparkling.

Starlight screams a high, sharp piercing scream, startling all three older bots. Auri and Prowl look at her with widened optics, but, more importantly, Praxus jerks his helm up and looks at her with shock and sudden awareness. She stares back at him as if trying to will him to understand that she'll never abandon him. His cooling system kicks on with a little hiccup, and he trembles as he tries to calm and steady himself for Starlight's sake. Prowl puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Starlight sits down but never breaks her gaze from her brother's face. He sniffles.

"I'm sorry," he says softly.

"It okay," she answers gently. "Em virus just telled ya pretend fings. Ya didn't mean it."

New tears well up in Praxus optics. He opens his mouth.

"Prax," Auri says, her voice low and meaningful. "Let's not worry about this right now."

Some of the tears run down Praxus's cheeks. "I- I c-can't bear it anymore."

"We help ya bear fings," Starlight says softly. "Always."

A tiny sob breaks from Praxus' lips. "You won't always."

"Praxus," Prowl says with a stern tone, taking the younger mech by the arm. "Do not say that. Come away for a minute and talk with me."

"No," Praxus replies quietly, not yielding Prowl's pull on his arm. He pushes at Prowl's fingers. "I- I'm n-not your brother, Starlight," he says with quiet resolution that breaks Prowl's spark.

Starlight sighs with patience. "Em virus telled ya pretend fings," she explains gently. "Jus cause I maked Auri my sister… it not mean ya not my brother. Ya still my brother. I jus have a sister now, too. It better. Anyway, ya have two sisters: me an Auri. I'll have a brother an a sister: you an Auri. Okay?"

Praxus shakes his helm. "It… it's not like that. We can adopt other bots and call them brother and sister, but I'm not really your brother. You're not really my sister. We have different parents. Your creators are very different bots than my creators. I... We aren't related at all."

Starlight stares at him, looking almost baffled.

"I'm sorry," he whimpers.

Auri and Prowl struggle to think of what to say, and Starlight looks at her pedes.

"I don't think ya know fings… lots," she says hesitantly and gently, shifting her wings respectfully. "Ya not my _sibling._ But ya _are_ my brother."

"Uh…" Praxus says. He falters and looks at Prowl, who seems surprised but curious. "Uhh…" Praxus says again, looking back at Starlight. "Would… would you explain… that a little more to me?" he asks.

She beams up at him tenderly. "Uh-huh! Well, 'sibling' the bot what has the same creators as ya. If em a mech sibling, ya call em 'brother.' An em a femme sibling, that a 'sister.' But 'brother' an 'sister' are also bots ya jus love an look after an stay by always. Always! Even though they not ya sibling. That's what ya are, Prax. Ya my brother. But not my silbling."

"Oh-" Praxus chokes out softly as his optics fill with tears of relief and happiness. She puts out her hand to him, and he cradles her in a hug. "I… I thought… I… I didn't know. I didn't know what you knew. I thought… thought you believed we were siblings."

Starlight giggles. "I didn't even know what siblings were 'til Uplink 'splained em in kindergarten."

"Oh." Praxus glances up at Prowl and halfway smiles as he realizes that Uplink was well ahead of them. "I… I'm glad she explained things to you. She's a very smart bot… I wish I knew as many things as she does."

"Ya could come learn fings in kindergarten with me," Starlight offers eagerly. "Even color names!" she adds with a bit of excitement.

"Prax knows the colors' names," Prowl defends. "I told you he did." A tiny bit of sternness tinges his tone before he realizes it. He doesn't like his word being doubted.

Starlight tilts her helm and looks at Prowl with a hint of hesitance. "Well… maybe he don't know _all_ em," she explains, but a telltale movement of her wings reveals that she did doubt.

"I do know them," Praxus confirms softly. "I was just afraid that when you learned them, you would realize that my optics are a difference color than yours, and then you would know that I'm not your br- your sibling."

Starlight shifts and stares at him with wide optics. "Oh…!" she says in wonder. "But, I always knew."

"You…" Praxus falters. "W-what did you think a-about them b-being d-different?"

"They extra pretty like the evening clouds an' stars with the sun down behind the planet-edge," Starlight answers matter-of-factly.

Praxus stares, his mouth falling partially open in amazement. Extra pretty? Like evening clouds? and stars?

"I think Prax's optics are beautiful, too," Auri says after quite a number of moments, once it's become clear that Praxus has –for once- lost the ability to speak.

"He mine beautiful brother," Starlight says, patting his cheek gently. Then she looks at Prowl with an adoring, coaxing smile. "May I learn just a couple colors early?" she asks hopefully.

"You want to know what color Praxus's optics are?" Prowl guesses.

Starlight nods, all eagerness, her own optics brightening; she loves it when Prowl knows exactly what she wants.

"They are purple," Prowl says tenderly, putting a hand on Praxus's helm.

"Purple…" Starlight echoes. She glows with infinite happiness. "Mine favorite color." She snuggles. "Brother, brother. Silly." Then she pauses and puts her helm up suddenly and looks at Auri with wide curiosity. "When ya come t'live with us as mine sister, are ya gonna bring Chromia an Ironhide, too? Where will we put'em at night?"


	8. Chapter 7, Surprise HouseWelcoming Party

_Hello! Sorry I didn't post basically all Summer! I was busier and more tired that I thought I would be. But I think I'll be writing more now. Thank you all for your support and the reviews. I love writing, but reviews are icing on the cake for me and make me so happy. Enjoy!_

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

 **Surprise House-Welcoming Party**

* * *

"Party, party!" Starlight sings to herself as she bounces softly on the couch in Sunny's studio. "Go-in' ta a party!"

"Don't fall off that," Sunny says watchfully, giving her a sideways look as he doesn't quite turn away from washing his paint brushes.

Starlight's chin juts up immediately. "I big an' smart enough t' not fall off couches!" she retorts. "Mind ya business!"

Sunny quirks an optic-ridge up but doesn't answer. Nothing he could say would appease or appeal to this tiny femme, so there is no point in provoking her with more words. He just wishes Praxus had taken her along instead of leaving her on the couch for twenty-some minutes while he ran off to get a trinket or whatnot from someone.

"I'll be right back, very soon," Praxus had said, and Starlight had been content to wait. She was quite happy playing by herself as long as Sunny didn't bother her with any words.

So Sunny kept quiet. Aside from that little warning to not fall off the couch. He remembered falling off couch and stuff multiple times when he was little; how could he not say something?

The door swings open, and Sideswipe breezes in with a grin on his face.

"Are ya coming t' th'party, too?" Starlight asks him.

"You bet I am!" he answers, going over to the couch to scoop her up in a hug. "If there's music, do I get dance with you?"

She grins happily. "After I dance with Praxus. An' Pruddle. An Ironhide… an…"

"I'll just wait a bit, I guess," he teases, chuckling.

"Yeah," she giggles. "But maybe we'll jus' eat an' drink an' have games."

He plops her back down on the couch gently and caresses her helm. Then he goes to his brother.

"Looking good," he says, peering over at what Sunny had created thus far.

"Thanks," Sunny answers, washing his hands now, the brushes dripping dry.

"Everything's ready," Sides tells him just above a whisper. "Where's Prax?"

Praxus scampers in before Sunny can answer.

"There you are," Sides says. "You wanna be late for the party or something?" he teases.

"I just wanna look my glorious best," Praxus quips back, grinning. "Ironhide finished up my new armor pieces for my arms today, and I wanted to get them before he left the shop. I like them!" He holds out his arms for inspection, and Sideswipe taps an inspecting finger on the new armor.

"Nice!"

"And he added this bit of chrome here, which I really like."

"It does look good," Sides says with approval.

"Have fun with the extra polishing work," Sunny puts in.

Then a thump catches all three mechs' attention, and they look toward the sound to find Starlight sitting on the floor by the couch.

"I told you-" Sunny starts.

"I didn't fall off the couch!" Starlight squawks, interrupting sharply. "I fell **_after_** I stood on the floor."

"Starlight…" Praxus goes over to her with a bit of stress in his expression. "I know you don't like Sunny-"

"Yeah, he bad!"

"But you need to be polite," Praxus says as she picks her up tenderly. "And you need to not interrupt him. He doesn't interrupt you, you know. Can you try to work on that?"

Starlight's lower lip makes a small stubborn motion, but then she nods begrudgingly. Far be it that bad Sunny is more polite than she is. "I'll be polite."

"Thank you, sweet spark," Praxus says, snuggling her. "Did you want to see my new armor?"

"Yes!" she perks up instantly. "That why I got down from th'couch. I wanted t'see!"

Praxus shows her the armor, and she admires it.

"It nice fo' th' party," she comments, caressing the silky polish.

"You're excited for this party, aren't you?" Praxus notices.

"Yeah! It like a s'prise party, but we found out!"

Praxus chuckles at the description, but he agrees. Sunny had decided about two hours ago to have a party, and the party was that night. Praxus doubted Auri and Prowl would come, but they were invited. And some other bots were invited, too.

"Here's the address," Sunny says, passing Praxus a tiny scribble of data.

"You're not going with us?" Praxus asks.

"I gotta wash up," Sunny says. "Go on."

"So you're gonna be late for your own party?" Praxus asks.

Sunny chuckles. "Better late than unsightly. Now go."

"Okay, okay," Praxus says, catching just a hint of irritation in the golden mech's voice. "Are you coming?" he asks the other twin as he starts for the door with Starlight.

"Yeah," Sides says, "But I have to run an errand real quick first."

"You're both going to be late for your own party," Praxus laughs, teasing them as he slips out the door. It never occurs to him that they are waiting for him to clear the area so they can speed out an alternate route and reach the address before he does.

He is unaware, and Starlight is full of words and ideas. Her interest in colors is dormant at the moment, aside from red and purple; Auri coming to live with them is still her main excitement. Will they stay up telling stories every single night like they do on sleepovers? Will they have noodles every day? Will Auri come to kindergarten with her? Is it certain that Chromia and Ironhide won't come live with them, too? Will Flareup come stay when she visits earth?

Praxus is content to answer all the questions he knows the answers to, and to reserve others with "We'll have to ask Prowl about that one," or "We'll have to see what Auri thinks about that."

"I see mushy-faces!" Starlight sings out presently, and Praxus follows her pointing finger to where Prowl and Auri are standing up ahead and talking with each other, their optics glowing with delight and adoration, their body language flirting gently.

"Hello!" Praxus calls to them, wanting to give them a chance to finish up whatever they are saying before he and Starlight reach them.

"Hello!" Auri calls back, and Prowl tips a gracious wing.

"Are ya coming t'th party?" Starlight asks as they draw near.

"Yes, we are," Auri answers.

"Even Pruddle?" Starlight asks hopefully. She knows Prowl likes avoiding parties, but she likes having him around.

"Yes," Prowl answers with a twinkle in his optics. "Shall we go on together?"

They walk on toward the address Sunny had given Praxus, and they reach it before long. It seems rather quiet for a party place, and the door isn't even open. Praxus stops at the door with wings shifting as he checks the address.

"Why th'door closed up?" Starlight asks.

"I believe we are early," Prowl answers.

Starlight frowns, thinking about Sunny.

Auri smiles at her reassuringly, and her optics twinkle at Prowl as he moves toward the door. It's unlocked and opens easily.

Praxus peeks over her shoulder, and Starlight peers at the dark silent interior. "Why they no party?" she asks.

"Maybe we're extra early. We'll ask Sunny when he gets here," Praxus says, shifting a wing.

"Late-bot," Starlight says accusingly.

Prowl activates the lights, and Auri peeks in eagerly at their future home. There's a big couch, the perfect size of big for four or five Praxians, and it has end tables and a short table in front of it. Away from the couch, in its own space, there is a low table with cushions around it like they have at the Praxian clubhouse. There is a hallway on the opposite wall, and a door on the wall to the right. There's also a little kitchen area with a cupboard, an energon dispenser, and some nice counter space with a sink and cabinets below it.

"It's perfect so far," Auri whispers to Prowl, daring to say a word since Starlight and Praxus are talking to each other already.

"Is it a trick?" Starlight asks them.

"It looks like a good place for a small party," Prowl says. He kisses Auri gently and then leads her into the living room, their fingers interlocking.

"Maybe it a trick," Starlight says. Even Praxus looks a little suspicious now.

"Oh," Auri says, smiling. "It's safe."

"Nothing seems off," Prowl adds. "Aside from the dearth of guests."

"Maybe they're down the hallway," Auri suggests, eager to tour her home.

Starlight shakes her helm, but Praxus ventures into the room with her. He has mild suspicions, especially about the shut door on the one wall, but he still trusts Sunny.

"This way, Prax," Auri calls, her wings flicking up a little as the dark winger eyes the shut door.

They go into the hallway and find another door. Auri opens it against Praxus's advice and finds towels and blankets and sheets and cleaning supplies neatly on shelves.

"Weird," Praxus says. "Don't touch the stuff," he adds.

Prowl keeps a straight face and leads the way down the hallway until they come to several doors. He nudges open the first one, and it has a berth and a nightstand in it. The second one has two beds and a set of nightstands. The third one has a berth and a nightstand and a nice desk with shelves above it.

"Is this actually a house?" Starlight asks with wonder.

"It certainly looks like it," Prowl answers.

"Where are th' bots? What bots got this house?" she asks, her optics growing wider and wider. A house this big must hold a family with sparklings.

"Let's check out the backdoor," Prowl says. "We'll find out in time, I'm sure."

Praxus looks hard Prowl and harder at Auri. He has new suspicions. But Auri and Prowl just act like normal mushy-faces all happy with each other, and he follows them out the backdoor to a great little patio with a table and chairs.

"Where th' bots?" Starlight asks, looking around.

Praxus looks around, too. He can almost sense Ratchet. Maybe? "Maybe they're beyond that other door in the living room," Praxus says, eyeing Prowl.

"Maybe," Prowl agrees, double-checking the address.

They head back into the hallway and toward the living room. With Praxus in the lead and Starlight looking forward in curiosity, Prowl and Auri find it safe enough to grin at each other in delight. This house is going to be perfect.

Prowl stops Auri without warning and quickly draws her into a kiss as Starlight turns back to looks at them.

"Mushies," she giggles.

"Really," Praxus says, glancing over his shoulder at them. Then he hears a noise in the living room, and the look of suspicion returns to face. He hands Starlight to Prowl and then hurries ahead to investigate.

"SURPRISE!"

Praxus stares at the dozen or so bots who have crowded into the living room as the confetti flutters down around him.

"Ah, the look on your face," Sunny chuckles, draping an arm around Praxus's shoulders.

"What _is_ this?!" Praxus demands, but he's not worried now.

"Welcome to your new home," Optimus says, gently shaking his end of the banner with those same words on it.

Praxus looks at the banner and at Optimus and then at Ultra Magnus who has the other end of the banner.

"Oh…" Praxus falters in wonder, looking around. His new home. So roomy and nice. He starts to smile.

"We wanted to surprise you," Prowl says gently. "Auri and I hadn't seen it before we arrived, either."

"It our house?!" Starlight asks in amazement, wanting to be sure she's understanding what the adults mean.

"It is our house," Auri confirms.

Starlight squeals with delight and wriggles happily. Then she hugs Prowl and then she reaches for Praxus. "It OUR house! It big fo sparklings!"

"It's perfect!" Praxus yelps with delight as he finally overcomes his wordless amazement.

"I smell noodles!" Starlight chirps a moment later.

"There are indeed noodles," Mirage answers from the little kitchen area. "That's why I had some for your surprise lunch today," he explains with a wink at the little femme.

"Now disperse," Ratchet tells the bots. "There are too many bots in this one room, and I won't have you stressing out Prowl."

"No, wait," Prowl says, lifting his voice slightly, surprising them all at this contradiction. He halfway smiles as he looks at them. Auri is standing partially in front of him, hiding his copper braid, and he's had her turn slightly away from the bots, hiding her own braid. "Thank you for-" he starts, but the panic of speaking before a crowd, albeit small, starts to freeze up his vocs. Auri slips her hand into his and grounds him. He cycles air through his system. "Th-thank you for coming to celebrate the joy of our new home with us," he says. He's sincere, but his words sound slightly forced, and his wings tremble a little. "We- also have- have… a-another-" he falters. He'd had the words all lined up perfectly in his processor, but they've scattered now. "Another joy to celebrate… w-with you… th… this evening," he manages. He looks to Auri, and their optics meet. He doesn't think he can get any more words out, but he knows she'll have the right ones.

She smiles up at him and then out at their gathered friends, and her voice is clear and happy as she speaks. "Prowl and I, well… it's not a secret that Prowl and I care for each other." She pauses at Chromia's gentle chuckle and smiles back at the blue femme. Then she grins up at Prowl. "We took time some getting used to each other and learning each others' ways, but now we can't imagine being apart. We have lots more to learn, I'm sure, but we're ready. We're committed. We're before you this evening as a bespoken pair."

Chromia whoops with delight a split second before the other bots raise a cheer, and Auri kisses Prowl.

Ratchet allows everybody to make their congratulations and felicitations, but then he makes sure the bots clear out or at least re-focus so Prowl isn't overwhelmed; he can see the tension in Prowl's wings.

Uplink goes over to see how comfy the couch is, and the twins take Praxus and Starlight down the hallway to show them Praxus's room. Optimus and Ultra Magnus finish putting up the banner. Mirage tucks himself back in the corner with the energon dispenser and counter so he can finish setting up the food. Chromia pulls Auri away, dances around her, and hugs her, and Ironhide puts a gentle hand on Prowl's shoulder. Elita smiles as she watches, and Ratchet shoos Bumblebee from the still-mysterious door while Bluestreak and Smokescreen test out the cushions around the low table.

It's a joyful chaos of celebration, everybody moving around and talking, inspecting things and giving well wishes and other pleasant words. Prowl is happy, happy that Auri and he are officially betrothed, happy that the others know and approve, and happy that Praxus and Starlight are happy about the house. His anxiety is ebbing away nicely now, and he silently thanks Ratchet and the other bots for that; if they had made him the center of their attention too long, he wouldn't have done so well. Things are good.

The other door intrigues him, though. The part of the quarters he has seen is perfect, but the master suite is missing, and he knows Optimus would not leave that off when Prowl asked for it. All he'd asked for was a room for him and Auri, and a room for his desk and a couch. Those two rooms had to be beyond that door, and he wondered what they would be like. Given the size and shape of the building and the rooms he'd already seen-

Chromia chuckles as she walks up to Prowl, interrupting his thoughts and surprising him, and Prowl turns slightly widened optics toward her, a wing flaring.

"You know," she says, smirking, "it'd probably be easier to just walk over and open the door and see, rather than try to guess."

Prowl glances back at the door. "I believe we will be directed to it when the time is appropriate," he says.

This makes her chuckle again. "Okay," she says and gives him a pat. Then she wanders off, and Prowl realizes that Auri has left the room at some point.

He goes down the hallway in search of her and hears her voice mixed with Sunny's and Starlight's voices. He finds them in the room with the shelves above the desk, along with Sides, Praxus, and Starlight.

Starlight is singing happily as she bounces on the berth. Praxus is rather subdued with excitement, looking around in delighted wonder while sitting on the berth, inattentive to Starlight's bouncing. Sunny is discussing the potential of the room; Auri, of course, agrees. Sides smiles at Prowl as he enters the room.

"Pruddle!" Starlight welcomes. "It all perfect! We got everything fo a home an space! This Praxus's an mine room! An the nother room can fit Chromia an Ironhide an Auri, an the next nother room fits ya! But ya still needs t'get a desk fo ya works stuff."

"Ah…." Prowl's wings shift. Somehow Sunny manages to choke down a snicker, but there's no way Sides could ever hide his grin of amusement.

"Chromia and Ironhide aren't coming to live with us, remember?" Auri says. "They'll visit us, but they'll stay in their own quarters."

"Then why gots a big two-berth room fo ya?"

"That's not my room,"

"It Prowl's?"

"No,"

Starlight stares up at her, looking mystified.

Auri smiles fondly at her, and takes her to cuddle in a gentle hug. "We're planning that some more sparklings will come life with us in time, and that room is going to be for them."

"Moe sparklings!?" Starlight looks excited.

"Yes, indeed." Auri says, and her answer makes Starlight squeak in delight and squirm away to bounce.

Then the bouncing stops. "But where ya gonna sleep? Not on the couch?"

"I'm going to sleep beside Prowl," Auri explains, smiling.

Starlight pauses as she sorts out the berths that she knows of in the house. "That berth _small_ , Auri. Yas'll be squished."

"I believe there is another berth room we have not seen yet," Prowl says, finally finding some words.

"Wha-? Where?!" Starlight optics widen in awe. This is a huge abundance of rooms that she'd never imagined having in one house. She slides off the bed, and Auri steadies her on her pedes for just a second before she dashes off to search.

"I don't know why you need a fourth berth-room," Sides teases. "That room with the two beds would do just find. Bed for Prowl, Bed for Auri."

Prowl shakes his helm slightly, but Auri is amused and giggles at the cheery twin. "Silly mech," she says.

"Yeah, Sides," Sunny says, smirking playfully. "Didn't you hear? She said she was going to sleep _beside_ Prowl."

"Well, they could slide the berths parallel," Sides offers nonsensically. "That'd be 'beside.'"

"That's true! Which is different than sleeping _with_ Prowl. I noticed that distinction you made," Sunny tells Auri, winking. Prowl glances out the door.

"Silly, Sunny," Auri says, blushing a hint now, blushing but pleased. "I wasn't going to say that to a sparkling, but you _know_."

"Eeeew," Praxus complains exaggeratedly. "You're talking about this in my room!"

"We're just using euphemisms, okay?" Sunny says.

"But I know what you mean, though," Praxus says, putting his hands out dramatically.

"Okay, okay," Sunny says. "I'll think up some new ones you haven't heard yet."

Praxus raises an optic-ridge in doubt.

"We should see where Starlight has gotten to," Prowl says, motioning, hoping to divert attentions elsewhere. Where Praxus doubts Sunny, Prowl doesn't.

"We should," Auri says, leaving Praxus's berth to go to Prowl's side. "She can be a bit of a handful when she's excited, and there are a bunch of bots out there."

"You just wanna know what your room looks like," Sunny teases, winking at Praxus as they follow Prowl's lead out of the room. Sunny follows behind Auri. "Where you're gonna sleep _beside_ Prowl," he adds.

"Sunny," Auri rebukes with a giggle, smiling at the thought.

"Where you're gonna- Ah!" Sunny trips, Praxus's left pede hooking around his leg from behind, and Praxus slams the heel of his palm against Sunny's right shoulder while grabbing Sunny's left arm, effectively spinning the golden mech to the floor and then piling on top of him. He slaps Sunny's helm once, sharply.

Sunny, lying on the floor, offers no resistance. "What the actual… stuff," he says, sounding likes he's amazed at some unwarranted outburst.

Praxus sits still, looking completely startled. He'd actually put Sunny on the floor. Sunny. On. The Floor.

"Get up," Prowl tells Praxus, motioning. "There are better ways to handle situations like this."

Praxus looks up at Prowl and doesn't obey. Now that he's over the initial shock of acting out, he's ready to test it a little. "I use words all the times, and he never listens very long."

"Then we need to try different words," Prowl explains. "Violence is not the answer."

"It works sometimes," Praxus answers, looking at the patiently motionless Sunny. "Besides, haven't Autobots been doing violence with Decepticons since before I was made? Someone must think it's the answer."

Prowl shifts a wing. "I will amend that to 'violence is not a good answer.' And the war is an entirely different situation from Sunny provoking you with teasing words. Now, come on up. Get off of Sunstreaker."

"I don't like you provoking me, Sunstreaker," Praxus says, leaning in toward Sunny's helm.

"I think Prowl gave you an order," Sunny answers.

"You hear Prowl fine, but you don't hear me!"

Prowl and Sideswipe make optic contact, and Sideswipe sends Prowl a quick intercom message. Prowl gives Sunny's pede a nudge with his own pede then.

Ironhide peeks down the hallway, and Auri motions him back. Praxus and Sunny needs to settle this.

"Okay," Sunny says after another moment. "I'll listen."

"Those teases you do about that upset me, and they make me… make me very upset. All through me, not a little upset on the armor. They get in me and upset me. Other teases you do don't do that to me. You can do those, but I don't like these ones! Ever!"

Sunny is quiet for a few moments, but then he answers calmly. "I didn't realize that, Praxus. You complain about all teasing as a matter of form. There wasn't much distinction."

"Well, I told you now."

"Yes, you did. I'll try to be careful and tease about… Uh…"

"Squirmy things."

"Squirmy things," Sunny repeats. "And I apologize for previous upsets."

"Thank you," Praxus says.

Sunny waits for him to get up, but it's another couple moments before anyone does anything, and it's Prowl who makes a motion.

"Do you think you can get off of Sunstreaker now?" he asks.

Praxus nods. He leans down and kisses Sunny lightly on the helm where the finish is scuffed from his slap, and then he moves a leg over and gets to his pedes.

Sunny picks himself up easily and then tilts his helm as he looks at Praxus. He's mad that Praxus kissed him, but he puts that aside. There are more important things to handle. "Do you see how all that was just words, Prax? You didn't need to put me on the floor to talk to me. Okay?"

Praxus looks at the floor where Sunny had been and then shifts a wing. "It felt kinda good, though."

This simple truthfulness breaks Sunny's hidden aggravation away, and he finds himself chuckling. "I imagine so," he says, realizing the catharsis Praxus must have felt. It's a feeling he's felt many times in his life, and that makes him smile. "Okay. That's fair, _this_ time."

Praxus smiles back, happy about being understood.

"Just don't ever kiss me again," Sunny says. "I hate that."

Praxus looks confused, a puzzled frown crossing his face. He had meant it as a kind gesture, a little repair, like when Starlight got herself scuffed and needed a "kiss all better." He starts to explains, "But it…" His wings shift as he reconsiders. "I guess it's not nice to you if you don't like it. I won't anymore."

"Thanks. Let's go now and see the rest of the place."

Praxus nods agreeably, and Prowl turns to lead on.

When they enter the living room, they find Starlight perched up on Optimus's shoulder and looking around.

"There 'em!" she crows, pointing at the three wingers and the twins. "We can find em room now."

Prowl's wings tuck a hint at the renewed attention, but Auri slips her hand into his and reassures him.

"You are very sure there is another room," Optimus says to Prowl, just a hint of fun in his typically serious optics.

Prowl looks up at him peacefully. "Of course I do. I trust you."

Optimus smiles back at him and then motions to the door that had evoked so much curiosity.

"Open it, open it," Praxus says eagerly.

Prowl nudges Auri, and she smiles up at him. She gets to open this one. She does so and peeks in. It's a perfect second living room crossed with an office. Prowl's desk is in a corner, placed so he'll be facing the room, as he likes it. A large couches faces the desk, its back against the wall, and a second couch sits perpendicular to the first one, its back against the other wall. There's a little table with two stools on the other side of the room, along with a cupboard and a sink.

"Do you like it?" Chromia asks as Auri enters the room and Prowl follows, looking around.

"I love it!" Auri says.

"It's not that different from Prowl's current living room," Praxus says, sounding pleased. Optimus hands an excited Starlight to him.

"Someone touched an moved Drifter here!" Starlight exclaims, mildly outraged, pointing at the gray and white plushie on Prowl's desk. No one was allowed to touch this plushie, and Starlight always made sure everyone knew that.

"They had permission," Prowl tells her, and she calms down almost instantly with a little "oh."

Praxus checks out the cupboard briefly.

"Are yas gonna sleep on th' couches?" Starlight asks after a few moments of puzzling.

"No. We have another door to check," Prowl says.

"So many doors!" Starlight giggles.

Auri opens the door, Prowl at her side, and they peek in together.

"Mm-hm," Prowl purrs with approval, and Auri feels her spark heat with pleasure. It's a simple room, and it's perfect. The bed is big, not just for two bots to share their love, but for the whole family to congregate and snuggle. The nightstands on either side of the bed give it a nice symmetrical look, and the full-length mirror from Prowl's room graces a corner. The windows are nicely curtained, and the sunlight filters down through the diffusers in the specially designed skylights and catches on the little crystals that have been hung from the ceiling.

"This one ya bedroom?" Starlight asks.

"It is," Auri answers. "It's perfect!" She slips into the room, Prowl following. She twirls and grins at him.

Praxus peeks in, Starlight on his shoulder. "Yeah!" Starlight agrees. "That perfect!"

"And there's another door!" Praxus points out, entering the room.

"Why?" Starlight asks.

"I don't know," Auri answers, and even Prowl shakes his helm, not knowing either; everything he asked for has been provided. A number of the other bots have come into the second living room. Optimus is at the doorway to the berth-room, and he smiles when Prowl looks at him with curiosity.

Praxus opens the door, and Starlight squeaks, "a bath!" She giggles. "They a bath in th' house!"

Prowl and Auri hurry over to see, amazed and delighted. It's a wonderful bathroom with a jacuzzi tub and two showerheads, a vanity with a bench and mirror, and a shelf for more towels and soap and scrubby things and polish. A private bath is an unexpected luxury Auri hadn't even thought of and Prowl hadn't dared to ask for. Praxus simply stares, and Starlight continues to be completely diverted by the novelty of a bath in a home.

Prowl realizes that Optimus has come in, and he looks up at the Prime. "Thank you," he says softly, wings dipping. He feels like there is more to say, but he can't find the words.

Optimus nods. "You are more than welcome," he answers humbly. "We thought this would be an extra nice touch for your family. It's much deserved."

"Wow," Sideswipe says, peering in once Optimus leaves. "I'm gonna move in with you."

"You'll have to sleep on the couch," Praxus teases him, setting Starlight on the vanity so she can inspect it to her spark's content.

"Hey, that room with two berths is still free," Sideswipe says.

"Oh, right. True. You can sleep there," Praxus decides, stepping into the tub. "You'll have to wait in line for the shower, though. I got dibs." He plays his hands in an imaginary spray of water. "Splishy splashy, got a bathy," he sings, shimmying.

"Pretty sure Prowl and Auri have dibs," Sunny chuckles.

"Wishy welly, Sunny's jelly," Praxus continues, shaking his wings. "Non-slip floor and everything."

"I'll just take a nap while I'm waiting," Sunny says.

"We have lots of berths to choose from!" Praxus exclaims, as if he's just realizing it. "The big one's the best, though!" He hops out of the tub and scampers out of the bathroom.

Prowl and Auri are sitting on the big bed with their pedes drawn up, facing each other and talking softly, only their fingers chastely touching and their legs almost brushing.

"Big for so many bots," Praxus declares, sprawling onto the bed. Prowl's wings twitch at the boisterous intrusion. "Lots of sleepovers, right?" Praxus asks.

"Lots of sleepovers," Prowl confirms soothingly as he settles his wings.

"Lots and lots," Praxus sings, kicking his pedes, squirming.

"Hey," Prowl says gently, putting a hand on Praxus's helm; a hyper Praxus is not a very stable Praxus.

Praxus wriggles a little and then curls up and lies still, putting a hand over Prowl's hand. "I guess I'm getting too excited," he says, his words somewhat muffled by the blankets.

"You do need some time to process and calm down," Auri says, scooting over so she can rub Praxus's back. "This evening has been pretty exciting."

"Lots of excitement," Praxus murmurs, his optics widening.

"Do you like your room?" Auri asks.

"I like it, really like it," Praxus answers softly. "I like all the rooms. Good rooms."

"They are good rooms indeed." Auri smiles at Prowl as she settles Praxus with her words. "They're going to be wonderful for our whole family."

"Can we snuggle?"

"Right now?"

Praxus nods, and Auri scoots closer. Prowl lies down facing Praxus so Praxus's helm is against his chest, and Praxus cuddles up closer like a sparkling seeking warmth. On the other side of Praxus, Auri's pedes are toward the mechs' helms, so she scoots up a little more, and then gently lifts Praxus's wing and puts her legs under it, nestles up against Praxus's back and pillows her helm on his hip as she rests a hand on his side.

"Best snuggle," Praxus murmurs, shifting just a tiny bit, adjusting between Prowl and Auri.

"We'll have lots of snuggles," Auri says, watching with love how Prowl caresses Praxus helm to help reassure him. This is her Prowl. Not the cool detached Prowl the humans see or most of the bots think they know. If they could see this scene, how they would stare in amazement. A few jaws might even drop. She smiles at the thought, and answering smile touches Prowl's face. He doesn't even know what she's thinking, but her happiness makes him happy.

Optics twinkling softly, full of adoration, she intercoms him. Praxus needs some quiet time, but they can intercom while they snuggle him; he doesn't need their entire attention, and he'll let them know when he's ready to get back into things. They shares their thoughts with each other, keeping still, and Praxus settles and relaxes, soothed by their presences, their peaceful happy energy soothing and centering him. In time, he shifts a little and slips away from his silent thoughts.

"I can't believe I put Sunny on the floor," he says in a small wondering voice.

Prowl's wings shake as he suppresses a chuckle. "Prax, I can't believe you've put up with him so long and not put him on the floor sooner."

Praxus tilts his helm at this idea.

"You have amazing patience," Auri agrees, giggling softly as she remembers the look of shock on Sunny face. "I would have slapped him way sooner."

"Oh," Praxus says, surprised. It hadn't occurred to him.

"I'm not encouraging it in any way," Prowl says cautiously. "But it was long called for."

"Oh," Praxus says again. "Oh, yeah…" He shifts a little. "Why didn't I slap Sunny sooner?"

"Because you're very good and patient," Auri answers. "More patient than I am."

"Patient like Prowl?" Praxus asks, optics twinkling up at Prowl with a bit of hero-worship.

"Yes, like Prowl," Auri answers, and Praxus looks pleased while Prowl looks self-conscious.

Sunny has heard his name, and he looks in on the cuddling Praxians and quirks an optic-ridge upwards. "That's not how you party, you know," he says, coming over to the berth nonchalantly to see if Praxus is okay.

"This is a timeout," Praxus says, looking happy. "We need some quiet time, so come be quiet or go away."

"Bossy all of a sudden, you," Sunny says easily, settling on the edge of the bed, amused with Praxus's new confidence. "I distinctly heard you talking, so how's that quiet time?"

"We're talking _quietly_ , Sunstreaker," Praxus answers, smiling up at him. "Come snuggle."

Not one for snuggling, Sunny looks at the Praxians like they're covered in wet paint, and Sideswipe comes in with Starlight before he decides what to do.

"Pwax?" Starlight reaches out for Praxus with concern, and Sides brings her over.

"I'm okay," Praxus reassures her, but she still hurries to scramble over Prowl and snuggle up on her brother. "Just taking a cuddly timeout."

"You do need those," Starlight says, making herself lie still. "Yeah, Sides?"

"Definitely," Sides agrees, joining the Praxians without hesitation, pillowing his helm on Auri's pedes, draping an arm over Praxus, and tucking his legs up against Prowl's helm. "Definitely good to take some time to settle down after a bunch of excitement."

"C'mon, Sunstreaker," Praxus coaxes, smiling persuasively up at the golden mech.

Shaking his helm slightly, Sunny pulls a pillow from the top of the bed and settles himself so he's just barely touching his brother. Starlight sits up and looks at him with accusation, glaring at him like he's some trespasser. Something flares in his spark, and he shifts so his helm is on Sides' legs, his chest is against Prowl's helm, and his legs are in contact with outer edge on Prowl's wings.

Prowl shifts his wings in surprise at the contact, but then they settle and his lower wing rests on Sunny's leg. He doesn't say anything, but Sunny doesn't sense approval from him.

Sunny resists the urge to growl at himself in aggravation. He doesn't like making himself this physical, this vulnerable, and he knows he's betrayed his feelings. Prowl can read his energy like a data-pad now, with him up against those sensitive wings. But now that he's done this, he can't very well back down. Besides, he belongs here as much as the next bot. Praxus asked him.

Starlight's optics are narrowed at him, wings shifting for a fight, challenging him to do one more thing.

Sunny wants to snap at her and tell her off, but he doesn't say a thing. He shifts, puts his arm on Prowl's shoulder, and rests his fingertips on Praxus's helm.

"Get ya hands off!" Starlight explodes, screaming, furious, tiny wings pinning up and back fully. "Get ya hands off mine Bwuvver an Prol, ya cwoss-wired moldering cable-tie!"


	9. Chapter 8, Settling

**Chapter 8**

 **Settling**

Prowl's mouth opens at Starlight's outburst, but he falters for words. Praxus is shocked speechless, and Auri stares at Sunny. Sides alone shows no reaction but thinks a dozen things.

Sunny's jaw tightens. He knows he shouldn't have done that. It was rotten of him to deliberately do something he knew Starlight didn't like. She's little, doesn't understand everything. He should have been kinder. Regardless of whether or not she was acting like a petty glitch, he shouldn't have incited her. After all, he bullied her brother, and she has a right to hate him.

He opens his mouth with an apology ready, but he meets her optics, and she is blazing with readiness to rip him to shreds if she could. It's a look he's gotten on the battlefield from full-grown Cybertronians, and it breaks his spark because she's so small, so young for these horrible emotions. It's not just this moment of touching Praxus that makes her hate him so much; it's every unkind thing he did to Praxus in the past.

He's already apologized for all that, and it hasn't worked.

He doesn't see any point in attempting to apologize again.

She'll only continue to condemn him. Persistent little scrap.

"Starlight," he says quietly. "Why don't you tell me the last time I was mean to Praxus?"

"Get ya hands off!" she screams.

Sunny lifts a single finger. "Tell me when I was mean to Praxus," he reiterates calmly. He senses Prowl thinking over this, and Prowl doesn't interfere, not even to tell Starlight to speak more politely as he always has in the past. Prowl always came in with, "Starlight, speak respectfully. Starlight, that's not how to talk, even if we don't like someone. Starlight, no; don't raise your voice like. Starlight, you know good manners." This time, he's silent. Starlight can yell if she sees fit, and she does.

"Ya frowed drinks in 'im face an sayd all mean things ev'wy day t'make 'im cry at work ev'wy time 'im tried t'work!"

Sunny keeps calm and takes a second finger off Prax's helm. "I know I did that, but _when_ did I do that?"

"I SAID Ev-wy! Day! At Work!" Starlight shrieks, tiny fists clenched, tears welling up in her optics.

Sunny pauses, cursing slightly at himself. "I… That's true, but… I mean, how long ago? Yesterday?"

"Naw!" Starlight says with a scowl, her tone slightly calmer.

"Was it last week?" he asks, and Starlight glares at him. He lifts a third finger. "Was it before Prowl and Auri were hurt by bad bots and stayed in med-bay for a long time?"

Starlight nods begrudgingly but doesn't act furious. She just stares pointedly at his hand.

He turns his palm up. "You know that was well over a whole year ago?"

"I don't know any calendars yet!" she protests, wings flicking. But still she doesn't yell.

"Okay." Sunny feels a hint of optimism. "Okay. I get that. My point is, it's been a really, really long time since I was mean to Praxus. I haven't made him cry once since before Auri and Prowl were in med-bay, that long time ago. And I've been nice to him every day since before then, too. You've seen all that. I give him paints, I teach him techniques, I help him when painting is difficult for him, I make paintings and sketches of him and for him, I answer all his questions, and share all my art archives, I listen to his stories and help him with his songs, I let him play my videogames and borrow my brushes and cloths and drink my energon. I keep snacks stocked for him. Those weird squidgy pudding things? I hate those, but Praxus likes them. I helped plan this party. I'm his friend, Starlight. If I stopped being his friend, he'd be spark-broken. So I'm not going to stop being his friend, and you might as well accept that and stop throwing a fit every time I do anything."

"I'm never trustin' ya, Sunskeeker," she says firmly yet calmly. She also hates those pudding things. She also doesn't feel so angry now that she's yelled do much. She's not used to yelling, and it's made her tired.

"I don't expect you to trust me," Sunny answers softly. "I'm not asking that. I'm just suggesting, you'll be happier if you stop getting mad at me for… existing."

She growls at that.

Sunny tucks his hand behind his own helm.

"Hey," Sides says gently. "Starlight, I know it's rough looking after a brother. But you can't control other bots. What you can do is check up on how your brother feels about other bots and then see how you can help him from there."

Starlight shifts a wing as she looks at the acceptable twin. He smiles at her and goes on.

"You don't like Sunny, but Praxus does. So you can't tell Sunny to stay away. Prax would be super sad if Sunny stayed away. But you can ask Praxus, 'are you okay with Sunny doing that?' And if he says, 'no,' then you two can figure out how to deal with that. But if he says, 'yes, it's okay' then you don't have to worry or get mad."

"That's a really good idea, Sides!" Auri says eagerly, more for Starlight's benefit than Sides'. "Starlight, that's a perfect plan!"

Starlight shifts a wing in doubt; she's always been told to leave Sunny be, to be polite, to not worry about what Sunny is doing. This is rather the opposite. How's Prowl going to let her do that?

"It is a plan," Prowl says slowly. "Since nothing else has worked, we're going to try it. Starlight, no more squawking and yelling at or about Sunny. If you don't like something he does, you will _calmly_ ask Praxus if it's okay with him. Understood?"

Starlight looks at Prowl in mild disbelief, but then she nods. "Understood," she says.

"That's my good sparkling," Prowl says, putting his hand over to give her a comforting caress on the helm. She nestles against her brother, putting her little hand on Prowl's for security. Contemplating the new rule, she smiles. Now she can say something every single time Sunny does something she doesn't like to Praxus, instead of being patient and nice. She tried being patient and nice, but she always felt so mad when she saw Sunny that it was hard. Now it won't be so hard.

"I think it's a good plan," Praxus says softly. "You'll be happier with it, and I will be, too."

Starlight wriggles and then looks at his face, searching his optics. She loves her brother. "Yeah, Pwax," she says.

She tries to lie still and quiet to snuggle with him, but the food in the other room smells very good and she hears Elita laughing and Ultra Magnus's chuckle. It would be a lot of fun to be in the other room instead of lying still and quiet.

"Are you feeling hungry?" Praxus asks.

"Yeah," she answers, sitting up eagerly. "Are you?" They could go together, leave Sunny.

He smiles at her. "I'm not at the moment, but you don't have to wait for me."

"Okay." She looks at Prowl to check for permission, and the gentle hint of a nod lets her know she may. She kisses Praxus on the helm and then crawls over him to get to the edge of the bed. "I'll save some fo ya," she says before sliding down.

Praxus listens carefully until he hears someone in the other room greet Starlight. Then he sits halfway up and slaps Sunny on the helm, reaching over Prowl. The golden mech flinches but doesn't offer any resistance, and Praxus settles back down on the bed.

Prowl shifts a wing slightly, and its polished edge rubs smoothly against Sunny's armor.

"I'm sorry, Prax," Sunny says quietly. He hesitates, not liking to talk, but then he goes on. "I shouldn't… I mean, her acting like a brat didn't justify me acting like… a fragger. I'm glad she and I discussed things, but I should have started it better. Been… kinder. Less provoking. I shouldn't have put my hand on your helm."

"It's okay now, I guess," Praxus murmurs. "You were probably getting fed up with her," he adds softly. "I was trying, always trying, to get her to be nicer to you."

"Maybe my solution will actually do the trick," Sides puts in lightly, trying to cheer up Praxus. "If not, we can always have you show her how you can put Sunny on the floor whenever you chose so she won't think you're _totally_ defenseless."

"Sideswipe," Praxus groans. "I don't want to fight!"

"My glitchy brother was teasing," Sunny says, throwing a pillow mildly at Sides in rebuke. "No more fighting or yelling or hitting and all that for any of us."

"Or name-calling," Sides adds, tossing the pillow back. Sunny knocks it down, and it lands on Prowl's helm.

"Yeah," Sunny says reflectively. He halfway smiles. "You can't beat 'cross-wired moldering cable-tie.'"

"I wanna know where she got that from," Sides says, chuckling.

"Uplink," Praxus says with a tiny grimace. "Uplink said 'cross-wired rusting screw-top' in certain tones when she was having difficulties with… well, opening cross-wired corroded screw-top container."

"Ahhh…!" Sides grins, and Sunny smirks. "Clever sparkling! I see what she did! It's like a formula for-"

"Do not start," Prowl says, seeing the ideas twinkling in the mischievous twin's optics.

"Yeah, be good," Praxus says, taking the pillow and stuffing it toward Sideswipe's face.

"I'll be perfectly behaved," Sides answers, sitting up to rub the pillow on Praxus's helm and make him laugh.

Auri takes the pillow. "I'll just put this decoratively somewhere else," she says, having been thinking about a pillow fight since it was first tossed.

"Put it on Prowl," Praxus says, grinning, ready for some fun now that the drama has been diffused.

"Yes, hand it over for safekeeping," Prowl says.

Auri catches a twinkle in his optics and shakes her helm. "No, sir. I don't think I will."

Casually, Sunny shifts. "Looks like your subordinate is getting insubordinate, commander," he remarks, stretching lazily to steal a pillow unnoticed.

"Auri is not my subordinate," Prowl answers gently, shifting a wing against Sunny. "She is my _co_ ordinate."

Sunny pauses and then halfway smiles down at Prowl. He hadn't been expecting that sort of comeback, but he likes it. "That doesn't mean she'll automatically side with you in a pillow-fight," he says.

"Is that where this is going?" Prowl asks, pretending to be surprised.

"Pretty sure."

"Are we doing teams or every bot for themselves?" Prowl asks, sitting up and motioning for Auri to give him a pillow.

"It's your new house, we could all gang up on you," Sunny offers as Auri tosses a pillow to her mech.

Side chuckles. "Or we could all gang up on you," he suggests, nudging his brother and snagging a pillow. "Since that's been the trend so far this evening."

"Hilarious," Sunny says flatly and then smacks his twin in the face with a pillow. Auri hops up and thumps gives Sides a second smack with her pillow.

"Have some brotherly sympathy for Sunny," she teases a second before Sides returns the blow.

"Hey!" Praxus yelps, the only one still lying down. "I don't have a pillow." Prowl rolls on top of him, pins him down lightly and taps him gently with his pillow.

"Never tell the enemy your weakness," he says, two-tone wings flicking playfully.

"I was telling allies to help me!" Praxus yelps, squirming. Auri plops a pillow on top of him for a second before turning it back on Sideswipe. "Arg! Sunstreaker!" Praxus calls.

Sunny whacks Prowl in the face and then pushes him off Praxus to wrestle down. Praxus scrambles away and tackles Sides so Auri can hit the cheerful twin while he steals a pillow for himself. "I helped you!" he protests when Auri hits him as well as Sides.

"Every bot for themselves," she says.

"Honestly, it's just the three of us against each other and then Prowl versus Sunstreaker," Sides says, motioning to the two mechs. "Wayyyy too competitive with each other."

"Okay!" Auri says, grabbing the last of the pillows so she has two.

Leaving Prowl and Sunny to themselves, Auri, Sides, and Praxus fight evenly among each other for a while, thoroughly enjoying it, teasing, dodging, thumping, tickling every now and then when someone gets pinned down. Then Praxus and Sides start ganging up on Auri, more mischievous than competitive. How long until Prowl notices? They're curious.

Auri giggles at them because she sees what they're up to pretty quickly. Sunny and Prowl are wrestling almost more than pillow fighting, but Prowl takes his focus off Sunny for a couple seconds, and Sunny waits, meeting her optics. She winks. She can defend herself in a pillow fight quite well, and she knows her opponents are softies when it comes to her. Neither one will be too rough with her.

She sweetly takes on Praxus, keeping Sides just occupied until she has Praxus pinned down, half tangled up in a blanket, and then she divides her attention between keeping Praxus in place while beating Sideswipe as much as she can.

"Sunny!" Praxus protests. "Prowl! Ow! Help!"

Prowl and Sunny glance over and chuckle at him and Sides.

"Serves you right for ganging up on her," Sunny says, trying to drag Prowl down again to halt his blows.

Prowl's optics twinkle as he rolls and pins Sunny down instead. "We knew she could handle you two."

"The question is," Sides says conspiratorially, dodging another blow from Auri. "Could she handle _you_ two?"

"Probably not," Sunny says, hooking a pede on one of Prowl's wings to hold him back. "But she's welcome to try."

Prowl halfway rises to get out of the pede-wing hold and loses some control of Sunny. Instantly, the golden twin jumps up to his knees and then pins him down. Prowl puts up his pillow to block the next blow and then rolls over into Sunny to knock him off balance and deliver a blow of his own.

"Honestly," Sides says, returning Auri's most recent pillow tap, "I'd stay out of that if I were you, but as for me, I'd have fun watching."

"We're both gonna have fun then," Auri says, shaking her pillows and getting a better grip on them. "I like a challenge."

Sides grins as he sees Prowl's optics widen.

"Bring it," Sunny says, smiling, sitting up as Prowl backs off.

Prowl puts a finger on the golden mech's shoulder. "Be careful with her," he says warns quietly, firmly.

"I'm not _that_ delicate," Auri says, both pleased at being protected and not so pleased at being considered in much need of protection in a pillow fight.

"Indeed, no," Prowl agrees, looking toward her with a fond half-smile. "You're tough and stubborn enough to make Sunny forget to be careful. That's why I warned him."

Auri kisses him lightly to convey her contentment.

"No worries, Aurilaze," Sunny says. "I'll beat you gently as possible."

"I cannot say the same," Auri answers, optics twinkling at him.

He chuckles, and then she swings at him.

Praxus and Sides keep out of it and just watch. Prowl does the same. Sunny doesn't pin her and wrestle her as hard he did Prowl, but he definitely plays tough. And Auri matches his intensity almost perfectly, getting in just as many blows as he does, dodging and striking and evading and attacking.

Auri smiles because she's doing well, but she knows she lacks the endurance the Sunny has. She'll tire long before he does. Plus Ratchet would scold if she overdid anything or pulled a muscle.

She strikes and then dodges, and taking that momentum, she rolls nearly into Prowl and gives him a solid thump with her pillow, earning herself one of his startled looks. She could get in more blows, but she stops to appreciate the wide blue optics and the cute wing twitch.

Then Prowl retreats a little, as much as he can on a big bed with four other bots on it. Auri grins at him and doesn't follow, certain he's being tricky now. Instead, she motions Prowl toward her with a finger. He moves forward, and she engages him in a blink, pinning him down with a little rush attack, one pillow between them, one pillow coming down on his helm.

They tussle for a little bit, and Auri, smiling, reflects that while Prowl is more gentle that Sunny was, he's more bold about making physical contact. Understandably. She makes sure to stay focused on the pillow fight, but she also can't help but enjoy the warm energy of his body and the sensation of pressing against him. If the twins and Praxus weren't there, she would let him win. Or maybe he would let her win. Either way, it would end up pleasantly.

"Honestly, I don't think either of you are trying that hard," Sideswipe says, chuckling.

"I am her mech," Prowl answers as Auri gets the upper hand and pins him down on his side, sits on him. "My inclinations are to care for her and please her. Fighting much with her, even in play, is not much in my spark."

Quite melted, Auri lowers her pillow to the bed instead of smacking Prowl with it as she had intended. "I didn't realize you didn't really want to play," she says softly, wanting to scoop him up and cuddle him in apology. "You should have said."

He studies her face fondly as he looks up at her. "I didn't realize I liked it so little until we were in the middle, but it wasn't all unpleasant, and I didn't mind continuing. You seemed to be enjoying it very much."

Auri's mouth makes a silent 'o' as her cheeks slowly heat up more. "I… I… the pillow fighting wasn't what I was enjoying so much," she confesses.

"Oooh," Sides says with perception. Praxus squashes a pillow in his face.

Prowl smiles softly as he realizes what Auri meant. He frees a hand to caress her. "That… that's the part I liked as well."

Auri sinks down onto him and kisses him as she cradles her arms around him. "Sweet silly Prowl. Next time, no playing a game you don't like. I want it to be all fun for both of us."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, optics twinkling fondly.

She gives him another quick kisses and then moves to sit beside him and pull him up.

"Well, looks that was a tie," Sunny says, taking Auri's discarded pillow and rubbing it on her helm.

"We both won," she confirms, smiling at him. "And you remain undefeated for now," she adds with a wink.

"No kisses for you, though," Praxus teases.

"I'll survive," Sunny replies, shaking out a pillow.

Prowl snuggles Auri and then reaches over to shift the tassels on the decorative pillow. "We should tidy go back to the rest of the party."

Praxus pops up and puts both hands on Prowl's helm. "Did you get a helm injury?" he asks dramatically, optics wide.

Auri giggles at that, and Prowl chuckles. "No. But, there is food out there, you see," he explains.

"Food is a powerful motivator," Sides quips, hopping off the bed.

Sunny gathers up a couple more pillows, and Praxus brings him several more as Prowl and Auri try to straighten the blankets on the bed.

"We have thoroughly rumpled it," Prowl ascertains after a couple moments. "We'll have to remake it entirely."

"Or just cuddle up and go to sleep," Praxus offers, flopping down amid the disheveled blankets.

"Prowl couldn't go to sleep in such a messy piles of blankets," Sides says. "Hop up. It'll be easy with all of us to help. And then we get food."

"Nmmm…" Praxus wriggles toward the edge of the bed but doesn't get up. Prowl gives him a light tap on the after-plating with a hint of a smile. "Hey! You don't have to lay a hand on my glorious and beautiful body like that," Praxus says, scrambling to get off the bed.

"Wow," Chromia says, wandering in, quirking at optic-ridge at the state of the bed. "Did I miss an orgy?" she teases.

Praxus's wings pin up instantly.

"Have some respect, Chromia," Sunny says bluntly. "Prowl and Auri have the highest honor for each other's bodies and boundaries, and Praxus and Sides and I would never… engage… each other."

Chromia blinks at Sunstreaker. "When did you lose your sense of humor?"

"I didn't," Sunny answers. "Just not certain humor is not amusing to some bots, and it's kindest to not employ it when they're around. Such as, what you said and Praxus who is sensitive to certain subjects."

Chromia looks at Praxus and melts at the vulnerable look on his face. "I'm sorry, sweet cheeks," she says, putting a hand out to him. He goes to her and tucks against her, and she hugs him gently. "I wouldn't ever say anything to upset you on purpose. You know, right?"

"I know," he says, snuggling in forgiveness.

"I just came in to check in on the lot of you," she says, glancing at the other bots as she caresses Praxus's helm. "You've been in here a while."

"We had a pillow fight," Auri says with a smile. "We were just tidying up before returning to the party."

"Sounds fun." Chromia smiles at the mental image she has.

"It was."

Prowl and Sides pull the blankets all off the bed, and Auri and Sunny help them, a bot at each corner, remake the bed, smooth and tidy. They pile all the pillows back neatly with some order at the head of the bed.

"That's a lot of pillows," Chromia remarks.

"We used them all in the pillow fight," Praxus tells her. "It's just the right number."

Prowl gives a nod of approval.

"Time for food now," Sunny says.

OoOoO

A couple hours later, the guests are gone, Prowl and Auri are washing energon cubes, Starlight is playing with the confetti, Praxus is dancing peacefully in the middle of the room to a song he's made up, and the twins are tidying up.

"I see 'em moon in th' roof-window," Starlight says with amazement, lying back in the confetti to look at it better.

Sides comes over to peer up. "Good view," he comments.

"It is really late at night?"

"Pretty late," Praxus says, bowing. He wanders over to the couch and snuggles down, watching as Sunny starts sweeping the floor. "We can do that in the morning, Sunny," he says, his optics partially closing.

Sunny chuckles. "You know Prowl better than that," he answers. Prowl glances over with a half-smile.

"Yeah…" Praxus murmurs.

"You can go climb into your new bed," Sides offers, seeing that Praxus is starting show how tired he is.

"I'm gonna sleep in Prowl's bed."

"You may go settle in," Prowl tells him, drying his hands after the last cube.

"You won't be there for a long time, walking Auri home and looking at the stars and moon and coming back."

"We'll be here," Sides says. "You won't be lonely."

"Auri and I are tired, too, so we won't take a long time," Prowl reassures him, wiping a few splashes off his armor.

"Auri's not tired," Praxus points out. "She's looking to flirt with you and stuff."

Prowl shifts his attention to Auri, and she flicks him lightly with her drying towel. He captures her gently with one arm, confiscates the towel, trading a kiss for it, and then rubs splashes of dish-water off her belly with it. "We will keep the flirtation brief, and I'll come right home."

"You say that…" Praxus says.

Prowl shakes his helm and nudges Auri toward the door. Praxus would argue sleepily for the next half hour if they let him.

Auri wishes the twins good-night and thanks them for planning the party and helping with the cleanup. She has a snuggle for both Starlight and Praxus and tells them she'll see them in the morning.

"When th' sun shows up!" Starlight chirps, tossing some confetti.

Once Prowl and Auri are out the door, Praxus tucks his helm against the couch, sitting sideways. Knowing that Praxus won't be reasoned with in this state, Sunny goes to sweep the hallway and the minor bedrooms, and Sides recruits Starlight to help him "capture" all the confetti so she can play with it later.

Starlight is happy scooping up handfuls of confetti into a bag as Sides sweeps it from every corner of the room. He knows some has gotten tracked into the master suite, so he heads in there, leaving Starlight with a pile to pick up.

She picks up some individual confetti bits and marches them into the bag, and then she sends double handfuls after them. "In ya go, tiny trash! Whoosh!"

Sunny smiles at the scene as he comes into the room, but Starlight notices him a second later. She gets mad, wings flicking.

"Hey, remember the new rule," he tells her gently.

" _Yaw_ 'member new rule!" she retorts.

"I will," he reassures her, wandering away as non-threateningly. He tidies some other stuff in peace, and Starlight finishes capturing all the confetti. "Prax is pretty much out," he says when Sides comes back in with a dustpan of confetti.

"Think we should move him?"

Sunny looks at the mechling. "Maybe wait for Prowl."

"Prol…?" Praxus queries in a sleepy murmur, moving his hand a little.

"He'll be back soon," Sunny tells him, going over. "You could tuck into bed to wait for him, if you wanted. I could help you."

"Sunnnnny…" Praxus reaches for him like a sparkling.

"Well, I'm not carrying you," Sunny says, leaning down, putting an arm around the sleepy mech. "But I'll help you uh-"

Praxus pulls him down to snuggle.

"Ack." Sunny accepts his lot with a small grimace as a little purr of contentment vibrates in Praxus's throat.

"Look on the bright side," Sideswipe says. "Now, he'll fall sound asleep in two minutes and we can carry him to bed without him ever noticing."

"Ya wait fo' Pruddle," Starlight tells him, putting her hands on her hips. "That what him wants."

"That sounds best," Sunny says, shifting slightly, attempting to find a little personal space to no avail.

Sides turns to hide a grin as he takes the bag of confetti to store in a closet, Starlight following at his heels.

"Now what?" she asks, peering around.

Expression serious, Sides considers her. "Now, we wash your face and pedes and then pick out a sleepy story for me to read to you."

Starlight frowns. "That fo' Prowl o' Praxus."

Sides mulls over how to convince her, and she frowns and shakes her helm at him as she sees him thinking.

"No," she says.

"Can I try just this one time, please? I'm pretty good at reading sleepy stories."

"Well… I guess so," Starlight decides after a little hesitation and some shifting of her wings.

Sideswipe proves to be adapt at washing small faces and pedes and a bit better than just "pretty good" at reading stories, and Starlight forgets that she had any objections to him taking Prowl and Praxus's place in her bedtime routine. Snuggled on his lap as they sit on the couch next to Praxus, she feels content and starts to get drowsy. She would have preferred to sit on her brother's lap, but he was cuddled up too much with Sunstreaker for her to even consider trying to find a place that would suit her. The golden mech seems relaxed and non-threatening enough, and grows more so while Sides reads.

Sides finishes one story and then starts another, his voice soothing and peaceful. He'll read until Prowl shows up, he's decided.

He ends up reading a third story before Prowl slips in the front door.

Sides raises an optic-ridge at him. "What took so long?"

"Arresting two bots," Prowl answers just above a whisper, smiling at the scene on the couch. "High-grade and tempers."

"Ah." Sides nods in understanding. He smiles at the tender expression on Prowl's face and his optics softly glowing. "I'm quite a good nanny, huh?"

Prowl halfway chuckles, a smile and almost silent purr. "Exceptional," he answers gently. "These two, I can understand you getting to sleep" -he motions to Starlight and Praxus- "But this one, in this situation, that's a feat." His optics twinkle at the golden twin.

Sides's optics widen. "He…" He looks around at his brother and then grins. "He is…!" he whispers, astonished and delighted.

"Shh," Prowl hushes. Sunny is utterly relaxed against Praxus, his helm tipped back against the dark mech's shoulder, optics softly closed, face peaceful in the oblivion of recharge.

Sides is inclined to savor this for a bit, but Prowl motions him up.

"What?" Sides asks.

"Settle Starlight in my bed. Then help me with these two."

"We could leave'em," Sides says, smiling, every the prankster.

"No," Prowl says, and Sides knows from the undertone that Prowl is far more tired than he appears.

Prudently, Sides slips off the couch and takes Starlight to the master suite. He scoots a couple pillows and settles her among them on one side. Then he goes back to the living room and helps Prowl separate Praxus and Sunny.

They settle Sunny more comfortably on the couch, and then Prowl moves toward Praxus.

"Hey, I'll carry him," Sides says. "You get a blanket for Sunny."

Prowl gives him a look of gratitude and then heads for the closet with tired pedes while Sides gathers up the dark winger.

Praxus makes a little querying sound at being moved around and lifted, but Sides stands still and silent until Praxus settles with a small whirr of his cooling system. Then he carries Praxus in and settles him close to his sister, putting him on his side and pulling a blanket partially over him, adjusting a pillow.

Prowl trudges in.

"Thank you, Sides," he murmurs, practically falling onto his side of the bed. He's miscalculated, though, and he's not quite in the right place. He's not on the bed enough. Legs too far over the side. He kicks a pede slightly, faintly annoyed.

Sides softly chuckles at him. "Hang on," he says, going around to Prowl, whose optics are blinking drowsily now that his helm is touching a pillow. Prowl could stay awake a whole day more if a situation arose that required it, but with no strong motivation to stay awake, he'll nod off in moments. Sides knows, and this makes him smile as he pushes Prowl over, away from the edge of the bed and starts to tuck his pedes under the blanket.

Prowl makes a small sound of complaint. "I did not clean my pedes…" he murmurs, making an effort to move.

"Hey," Sides says, putting a hand on him to make him stay put. "Just be still. I'll clean them for you."

"You do no hav t…"

"But I'm going to," Sides tells him firmly. He gets a cloth and some cleanser and settles at Prowl's pedes. Prowl shifts a wing but doesn't object as the twin gently takes one of his pedes and starts to wipe it down and scrub the street-grime from the treads. Prowl's pedes aren't overly dirty, but sticking them in bed even just a little grimy would bother him, Sides knows.

Prowl murmurs a drowsy, exhausted "thank you."

"It's a small thing in return for all you do for the lot of us every day," Sides answers gently. Prowl dozes as Sides finishes his self-appointed task, and then he settles as Sides tucks his clean pedes under the blankets and pulls the blankets up close to his wings. "Sweet dreams," Sides says, dimming the lights. "New adventures tomorrow, I'm sure."


End file.
